


through veins, within void

by Avvu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Angst, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), Loneliness, M/M, Survivor Guilt, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27824830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avvu/pseuds/Avvu
Summary: And in his dreams, they are twenty again and love love love.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this on/off for like, two or three years, and hopefully, it's now in the shape that'll satisfy me for more than a year :')
> 
> I've tried to make it so that this is a **stand-alone** , and _[be a riot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670367/chapters/67712405)_ is more like a fun bonus prequel. I've tried to write riot into this story, because the style difference between riot and veins & void is pretty huge. but these two are my babies, and this comes from someone who couldn't stand s/r AU fics a couple of years ago.
> 
> (and hey, note that I've decided not to use warnings; this is bc I don't know what to warn, other than just, lonely and dark times. and police corruption.)

_I bet you thought your life would change  
but you're sat on a train again  
your memories are sceneries  
for things you said but never really meant _

_\--_

_and I always wanna die sometimes_

_(The 1975 – I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes))_

July  
1993

“Lupin.”

“ _Hi, Remus. It’s Andromeda Tonks. Andy. Black. Tonks._ ”

“Where the hell have you got my phone number? Fuck, Andy. Hi.”

“ _Hi._ ”

“Why are you—it’s been twelve years.”

“ _Yes. How are you?_ ”

“Why are you calling?”

“ _You haven’t heard, then._ ”

“Haven’t heard what?”

“ _Sirius escaped from prison. They talked about it in the news. Remus? I was just thinking if—_ ”

  
  


*

  
  


October  
1993

Yet again that year, autumn arrives slowly and on its tiptoes in Wales. Remus hangs clothes to dry on the porch, the clothesline slouches between the two bars holding the roof of the porch; the knots have loosened over time. It’s windy, and the cold air sneaks underneath the sleeves onto his wrists. He has let the front yard go to the dogs, rotting apples lie on the grass under the apple tree, dry leaves move with the wind. His father’s planted flowers have blossomed and died.

Like his father, Remus thinks. First blossomed, then died. Though, Lyall Lupin didn’t blossom, at least not like the rose bushes on straight rows. Lyall Lupin was more like a fungus on a tree branch, sucking out its vitality to live himself. And yet, ten years after his father’s death, Remus is living there, in his father’s house.

The house is old and made of stone. A plate over the front door says _Y Bwrhyn Rhosyn_ as if the house had some worth, as if it deserved a title. The plate is rusty and worn, but the letters have been imprinted in such a force it’s not likely they would ever fade out. The house is named after his father’s roses, yet when the roses have died and decayed, the name still stands.

Remus goes back inside. Radio warns about the rain and wind over the sea, it’s always rainy and windy over the sea, or so it seems. The air is so humid, wallpapers and bedsheets are always a bit damp. Remus has had a runny nose for two years straight.

He has been living there for two years. Two of the twelve. It’s easier to avoid the news in Wales. He has been thinking about changing his name, he has started to read books, left them unfinished only to start them again, only to avoid them on the same page that has been folded on the corner.

He has a loaded revolver in the drawer of his nightstand, just in case. Even though he keeps telling himself he has forgotten all that.

He has not.

The grandfather clock calls out the hour, the noise echoes in the empty house before it sinks into the damp walls. Remus goes into the kitchen, opens a cupboard door. He takes a blister pack into his hand and pushes one tablet out. It rolls onto the kitchen counter, Remus catches it. He has been told he’ll be _just fine_ if he only takes the medicine and goes to the regular control visits. Once, a few years ago, he had the flu and he was certain he will die. He had seen men die like that in hospitals, they coughed themselves dead. But Remus didn’t die. What a pity. He takes the tablet into his mouth, rolls it around in his mouth, opens the tap, fills a glass with water and swallows.

What a pity.

He walks into the living room, there are picture frames his father has put on the walls, and his father’s sofa stands on its steady legs on his father’s carpet. Tea and wine stains are colouring the light carpet. Tea is from his father, wine from Remus, or the other way around, he’s not exactly sure. The bookshelf is full of unfinished novels and folded pages. On the corner of the room, there is a telephone on a small table. He has unplugged it, and the receiver is on the table next to it, just in case. Remus is afraid that if he put the plug back on, the telephone would ring and he would answer.

It has been three months since Sirius Black has escaped from prison.

For thee months, Remus has woken up, put on his clothes, made coffee, eaten breakfast, taken his medicine, shaved, walked to the village to look at more damp stone houses and new cars, bought milk and bread and walked back. He has opened books, left them unfinished, listened to the marine weather reports from the radio, made lunch, taken his medicine, laid on the sofa, opened a book, closed it, made sure the gun is still where it’s supposed to be, did the dishes or washed laundry, made tea, looked at the time going by, taken his medicine, washed his teeth with copper tasting water, gone to bed, and on every heartbeat, he has thought about Sirius Black.

The moment he has heard about Sirius, he has jagged the telephone plug out of the socket, slammed the receiver on the table, and started shaking. Then he has taken the gun into his hand and maybe cried, gotten drunk with cheap wine and passed out with a loaded gun still in his hand. Perhaps he has been waiting for it to happen, and perhaps he has only been surprised how long it has taken. Twelve years. Twelve fucking years, Remus thinks, sits down to the sofa and stares at the telephone. He has wanted to call Andromeda back, but he doesn’t know her number. It won’t be found on the phonebook, his phone number most certainly won’t. It has been twelve months and Remus hasn’t heard from or about anyone. Not until Sirius fucking Black has escaped from prison.

Remus’s fingers feel restless and his thoughts have hysteric and storm clouds intertwined into them. He presses the palms of his hands on his eyes and sees colours and waving lights. He takes a deep breath, then deeper. Thinking about Sirius makes him miss drugs, endless high, sex, adrenalin gashing through his veins, the fear of death, _sex_ , something. Something else than the damp house, the small village on the seaside, flat landscapes.

For three months Remus has thought he has seen Sirius down at the village. He has been choosing bread or glanced over to the other side of the road, he has seen someone coming out of a car or turned towards the milk, and only afterwards he has realised Sirius is no longer twenty-one. Remus is not twenty-one either. He has turned twenty-two, then twenty-five, thirty. Now, at thirty-three and still alive, he waits and is scared, waits for the telephone to ring again even when it’s not plugged in.

Remus stands up again, rolls up the sleeves of his jumper and makes tea. For a while it feels ridiculous; him being there, in Wales, in his father’s house, making tea. Him, Remus Lupin, who should be dead or, at the least, in prison. Him, Remus Lupin, who, by some fucking miracle, has survived this long even with the illness and the side effects of the medicines. If he believed in anything he would probably think it’s a punishment for everything he, _they_ , have done. He has to live his life in dampness, with the illness and blood on his hands.

He blames Sirius for everything. Years after everything, Remus has found out who was the man he has killed when he was nineteen years old, the man who has a whole through his chest from a bullet Remus has shot. His name is—was—David Hampton, his tombstone stands somewhere on the border of England and Scotland. David Hampton has left behind a widow and two children. The children are already adults, but years ago Remus has been standing in front of the Hampton’s house and looked in. In the kitchen, a woman has been petting her younger daughter’s head and a cat has been sitting on the windowsill and lilac has been in flower and it has smelled like petrol and grass and dust. Remus has been thinking about leaving two thousand pounds in an envelope, but after all, he has turned away, clenching the money in his pocket, and Sirius’s voice inside his head has whispered: _It was an accident._

There is another house Remus has stood in front of. He can’t remember when Lily has become one of them, but he can remember Scotland, the petrol station and a bank and 30 000 pounds. He can remember how James has fallen in love and how Remus has taught Lily how to fire a gun and somewhere between tens of thousands and the smell of gunpowder, Lily has had a baby. Remus remembers seeing him when he was tiny and round and had only a little of black hair on his head.

Remus can remember Lily talking about Petunia, her sister, whose life has been perfect from the start, she’s been the one their parents have liked more. Petunia had a rich husband with conservative thoughts and a title in a successful company. And Remus has been standing there, in front of a brick house, the front lawn has been cut straight and the car on the driveway has been from that decade. Petunia Dursley has been so thin and petite, Remus has been sure he has been able to hear her bones rattle against each other under her skin. And Harry Potter. Harry has been eight years old then, small and lanky, his skin darker than anyone else’s in the house. His hair has been the same as James’s, dark and all over the place, and even though Remus has not even been close, he has been able to recognise him. And then Remus’s hands have started to shake, he has turned away, clenched his hands into fists in his pockets, and he hasn’t come back there.

For two year, Remus hasn’t been back to England.

Now he is there, in Wales, in his father’s house, and he’s scared all the time; that someone would realise what he has done and where he is. He’s scared of dying and that he won’t die after all. In his fear of death, he takes the medicine, and he remembers to eat real food. He drinks less than ever, he doesn’t do drugs, and he has quit smoking for the smell of cigarette smoke makes him think of Sirius and sex. He doesn’t enjoy life, but he is alive.

Tea gets cold, a draw blows from one of the windows in the kitchen but still, Remus’s hands are clammy with sweat and everything is damp, damp, damp and he feels a bit sick.

It has been three months since Sirius escaped from prison.

  
  


*

  
  


Remus can’t remember many Christmases, and only some from his childhood when there have been too many people and too much noise and people have walked over him.

After those, the meaning of Christmas has changed for him. Three or four years after Remus has met Sirius for the first time, and both of them have had _enough_ of their families, Sirius and he have spent Christmas with a girl Sirius has met three days earlier. Mary or Marlene, and she has lived with her girlfriend and they have been a couple of years older than Sirius and him, which has meant they could buy wine. Sirius has already turned sixteen by that time, Remus hasn’t yet, but that hasn’t seemed to bother Mary or Marlene and her girlfriend.

Two years after that they have been way too drunk to remember the date but Peter has reminded them at some point, and James has said it’s stupid to even remember that. And Remus has thought it has been the best Christmas he has even had; that might have been because when James and Peter have been in the other room, Sirius has put on _Bron-Yr-Aur_ and said it reminds him of Remus since it’s quite Welsh and lasts just over two minutes, and when Remus has told him to fuck off, he has been smiling a little and Sirius has grinned back with his tongue between his teeth, and Remus’s heart has been beating so hard it has hurt a little.

Remus also remembers one Christmas, when James and Lily have told them they are going to have a baby, and Sirius has looked like he wants to smash the telephone. Regulus has died a week earlier and Sirius hasn’t been alright after that. Remus hasn’t been able to anything for him, and it makes him hurt all over. Sirius hasn’t touched him for a week, but he hasn’t left Cardiff or even Remus’s apartment for more than a half an hour at the time to buy more cigarettes or vodka or something else to get high. Sirius has said; _They’re fucking idiots_ , meaning Lily and James, probably, but Remus has thought he might have meant them, too. He hasn’t known and he hasn’t known what to do with him. He has been so lonely in his own home even with Sirius still living there.

But Christmas comes again that year, it’s noticeable in the village; candles in the windowsills and yellow strings of lights over door frames and eaves. A fair is held in the village and Remus accidentally ends up in there. People tell him _Happy Christmas_ and _Nadolig Llawen_ and he buys a fruitcake. It tastes like sand and childhood.

  
  


He doesn’t listen to the radio anymore. He’s too afraid to. In his dreams the radio tells him about dead people and how Sirius Black has killed police officers, those Black family members he still has left, and the police are asking Remus Lupin to come forward to the nearest police station for a hearing. That never happens. As far as Remus knows, he has never been searched, not after Lily has died and James has died and Peter has died and Sirius has been locked up in prison. No one has been interested in Remus Lupin. It feels wrong. They should be searching for him. He has killed a man and he has stolen so much money he can’t even remember the exact numbers.

Sometimes he thinks about going to the police himself, there is a small station in the village. He would sit in the waiting area, maybe he’d read magazines and he would have a handgun in his pocket and coordinates to Russia on a small piece of paper. He would give his name and his business to the woman behind the desk. He is Remus Lupin and he has killed a man in 1979 or a year earlier, he can’t remember. He has been involved in several bank robberies all over Britain. He knows the Black family. He has been there when Sirius Black has killed Rodolphus Lestrange. He has killed a man himself. Then they would ask him for more details and he would answer as much as he could remember. He would tell about the drugs and the stolen cars and maybe he would cry and he’d tell them how he regrets everything and nothing at all.

But he never does that. He is too afraid of going to prison, he is too afraid of taking responsibility for his actions. He is too afraid of getting another label: sick and _a murderer._ All the empathy people have given him would dry up in seconds. No one feels pity for a murderer. And; he thinks about Sirius and the scar he has in the palm of his hand. It’s almost impossible to see nowadays, but he knows it’s there. They have promised _one hundred summers and one hundred winters_ and it has only been twelve.

Fucking blood oath, he thinks. No one dares to make them anymore.

Snow falls for the New Years, it covers all the rotting apples and dry leaves for one night but melts away the very next day. The new year starts black and wet, and it’s almost romantic.

  
  


*

  
  


Maybe he has never thought that Sirius is a good person. Sirius is not nice and kind. Sirius is a killer and a manipulator and the only reason for everything. _Everything_. For the dead people and because of Sirius, Remus is living in his father’s old house in the countryside in fucking Wales, and because of Sirius, Remus lives only to breathe.

He puts the wine bottle to the floor. Being drunk doesn’t feel like being young and living forever. His head hurts and his ears ring and looking out the living room window, the spring sun is rising against the meadow. Behind the meadow lies the sea and in the sea, there is endless freedom.

If he wasn’t so fucking scared, he would walk into the sea.

In his dreams, he has had a gun. He has been nineteen years old again and full of hatred and love and he has pushed Sirius’s face into a pillow and he has fucked and enjoyed all of it. He has been crying when he woke up. He has opened a wine bottle and stared with empty eyes at the slowly brightening meadow.

It has been nine months since Andromeda called him. Remus turns to look at the telephone. He stands up, his legs feel heavy with wine, but he walks to the phone. He puts the receiver back to its place, the telephone lets out a sharp _ting_. He crouches down, takes the wire into his hand and plugs it.

He waits for something to happen.

Nothing happens. The clock strikes four times and for a moment he forgets he’s drunk and he’s certain he will die now.

Nothing happens.

The sun rises over the meadow and Remus rises from the floor.

  
  


*

  
  


The first year everything has happened, Remus has left the country. He has been sitting in a train in France, pressing his forehead against the window, drunk and his thoughts an unclear mess, he has realised he’s alone. First, he has heard about James and Lily, everyone has been talking about them on the radio and in the newspapers. Only later he has heard about Sirius. What Sirius has done, that Sirius has killed Peter, Sirius has shot Peter in the face and laughed. Sirius Black is made an example, some kind of a warning to others, and Remus has taken the warning seriously. He leaves. He goes around Europe, he has had one hundred thousand in cash with him and he has buried some of in the ground in the mountain in Russia. Some he has changed into Russian rubles, Swedish crowns, German marks. He spreads stolen money all over Europe until he hasn’t got any original bills on him. Then he breathes for the first time.

And of course, he gets diagnosed with _it_. Not as one of the firsts, but it is in him and he knows it as soon as he hears how young men die in hospitals and in their homes and how it spreads. And it’s in him and after six years he gets back to Britain and he’s scared. He’s sure he will be under arrest right away when he gives his name to the receptionist in the hospital. He knows they must know his name. And he knows that if they don’t know, the Blacks know. But six years seems to be enough; he has been forgotten, or else, they have let him be. It doesn’t feel like good luck;

for now, he has to _live_.

It would only make sense that Sirius should have died. Of Kaposi’s sarcoma, of pneumonia, from a bullet from his father’s gun, something. It’s unbelievable Sirius is still alive and escaped from prison and it’s unbelievable that after almost a year Remus hasn’t heard anything of or from him.

Maybe Sirius thinks Remus is dead, he thinks, hopes, thinks. But if Andromeda has found him, Sirius would found him, too. Sirius always finds him.

Something Remus thinks he would find Sirius first. He could find him if he wanted, he’s sure of it. He knows Sirius has been in Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire. Sirius has belonged there. For twelve years Sirius has been there and now he’s somewhere else. Remus has been trying to think why Sirius has gone through so much trouble and escaped. He’ll be killed anyway, found and killed and Remus is sure of it, Sirius has no chance to survive. And if Remus finds Sirius first, he could kill him before anyone else would.

Remus thinks about the now thirteen-year-old Harry Potter, who looks like James but smaller. Does Harry know why his parents are dead? Remus doesn’t think that’s likely. And if he does know, does Harry know what Sirius has done?

Remus could kill Sirius if he wanted to.

Only he doesn’t. Remus Lupin is a fucking coward, he could never do that. And even though he is made of steel and diamond, _steel_ and _diamond_ , he is only strong through Sirius.

And in his dreams, they are twenty again and love love love.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s the beginning of summer. The apple tree has blossomed and started to grow new, small apples. Remus decides that this year he won’t let them rot. One and a half mail away lives an old widower, Remus has talked to her a couple of times, he could take the apples to her. Remus takes down dry clothes from the clothesline, the sun is shining and the wind is only a mellow whisper. He folds the clothes on the porch, and then he goes inside and closes the door and brings the clothes to their rightful places. Sun is shining from every window. Remus is alive and he takes his lungs full of light and spring, summer, yellow. He thinks he should wash the windows, the light could get in better and if he cleaned up a little, the air wouldn’t be thick with dust.

The clock stokes the hour, Remus takes a pill, fills a glass with tap water that tastes like copper, and swallows the pill. It gets stuck into his throat but it gets easier when he drinks some more.

He thinks about the upcoming autumn and apples and the dirty windows and then he hears how the boards on the porch creak under the weight of someone’s feet and he _knows_.

His heart chimes against his ribcage, the slowly smouldering fear bursts into flames and burns. The door is not locked and only by pushing the handle it opens and it’s too long to the bedroom, he should have gotten a holster or he should have put the gun under his shirt. His feet are glued to the floor, the glass slips from his hand but doesn’t even break, it hits the carpet and rolls under the table. Water splatters on his clothes.

He hasn’t been listening to the radio and no one has called him.

He should have left. He should have gone to Europe or to Asia, he remembers how years and years ago Sirius and James have talked about the Great Wall of China, he could have visited that. Peter once went to Africa, he should have gone there, he could have dried in the savanna and he could be only bare bones by now, but at least he wouldn’t be there and there wouldn’t be anyone outside the door.

It could be the widower from one and a half miles away. It could be the postman. It _could_ be anyone, but Remus knows those steps and that weight that makes the porch creak and squeaks, he could never _not_ know that. Sometime a long ago those steps have been all that he has been living for.

He has imagined the situation before; how Sirius Black would point a gun at him and how the walls of his father’s house would be spattered with blood. Or maybe it would be Remus with the can. He would shot Sirius, see the surprised expression on his face.

Fuck. He has loved that face.

He takes a deep breath and air in his lungs crackles. A knock on the door. It’s ridiculous, why to waste good manners when it would end in murder anyway. Another knock. Remus closes his eyes, opens them and his legs move. He goes to the door, his hand on the door handle. He thinks about autumn and apples and who would pick them now.

He expects to see Sirius. Older, but recognisable, eyes full of fire and hatred so deep it’s contagious. Sirius with an outline of a gun under his shirt or Sirius with a gun already in his hand. Sirius, whose determination is shown with bruises and Sirius who makes the blood in Remus’s veins boil with heat and élan. Sirius in too-tight jeans, good hair only a little messed by the mellow wind. Sirius with his bloody knuckles and busted lip. He expects to see _Sirius_.

In the early summer’s warmth stands Sirius Black. With misty grey eyes, hollow cheeks, a sharp collarbone visible under the collar of his shirt that looks like it doesn’t belong there. With long stubble, sharp angles of his jaw. His clothes are loose and dirty and his hair is a dry mess to his shoulders and over. Deep purple under his eyes. No gun, no determination, no hatred, nothing. It reminds Remus of something from _one hundred summers and one hundred winters_.

Remus clenches the door handle so hard it hurts. In sunlight, in Wales Sirius looks wrong, doesn’t quite belong there. Remus looks at Sirius’s hands and sees joints and tendons and dirt under his nails.

It has been almost thirteen years. Breath catches in his throat, and if he didn’t hear the magpies, he would think the time has frozen. His hand shakes on the handle, metal presses unto his skin.

Sirius Black opens and closes his mouth, he doesn’t look Remus in the eyes and Remus doesn’t look at him, his insides feel like a storm.

“Are you going to just stand there?” asks Sirius’s flat, unemotional voice, it’s raspier and lower than it has been in Remus’s dreams, but Remus can’t pretend he could remember how Sirius’s voice really sounded before.

Remus says nothing. He stares and shakes and can’t do anything else.

“Remus.”

Remus jerks at the changed tone in Sirius’s voice, it’s suddenly asking, pleading, begging, nothing he has heard ever before. Twenty-one years old Sirius never begged anywhere else than in bed but Remus can’t remember that now. His heart is hammering scattering glass inside him.

“For fuck’s sake, at least let me in,” Sirius says, or Sirius’s voice says, and Sirius’s face has Sirius’s mouth on it, and somehow Remus can recognise it and at the same time, he can’t.

He closes his eyes. He has a gun in the bedroom, he has a telephone in the living room, he could call someone to get Sirius if he wanted to. He doesn’t want to. He opens his eyes, takes a step back and lets Sirius in.

Old house sways and hums around him.


	2. Chapter 2

_well we’re here again  
we’re at the common again  
smoked six out of the ten fags that I only bought an hour ago  
–  
I’m not half as bad as what  
you’ve been told  
(The 1975 – 102)_

May  
1994

He has known for months where Remus is. He has tried to remember what Remus looks like but there is something wrong with his memory, somehow he knows but he can’t remember. He remembers only some things, he remembers summer of 1975, two summers after that, and he remembers Regulus, and some days he can remember some other things too, like the way sex has felt or what James has said after their third bank and if it snowed in the winter of 1980.

In prison he hear things. For example, that Bellatrix has also been arrested. Bellatrix has killed a married police couple whose name have rung some bells. And he hears Regulus have killed himself, that fucking idiot. He has also heart another rumour; that Regulus has been killed but it has been made look like a suicide. Sirius doesn’t know which one he should believe, it has been such a long time and Regulus is, no matter what, dead.

At some point his father has also died. In eighty-four or eighty-five Orion has come to see him and they have been staring each other through the glass. There are holes in the glass between them and Sirius knows that even if he tried, he couldn’t get to the other side. Orion has looked old, older than Sirius has remembered him. Skin in Orion’s upper lip and around the eyes has been wrinkled and dry and Sirius has thought that it was already time for Orion to die. Orion has come there to talk to Sirius and Sirius hasn’t known what for. First Orion has congratulated him for killing the snitch, but then he has reminded Sirius that three out of his little gang has died, one of them is in prison and one is gone missing. _That Lupin_ , has Orion said, has been last seen in Belarus two years ago but nowadays no one knows where he is. Sirius has thought: _Good_ , and Orion has said: _Well done, son_ and his voice has been so full of revulsion and hatred, and Sirius has been certain it has been the first time Orion has called him son. Orion has tried to provoke him and Sirius has clenched his hands into fists under the table and stared into Orion’s eyes and hated.

Walburga never visited. She’s dead, too. Some night, when Sirius can’t sleep, he has been staring at the strings on the bottom of the top bunk in the dim lighting and imagined how he would burn the London house and maybe he’d laugh. He wouldn’t look back, he’d let it burn. And the flames would rise to the heavens and he would watch.

He hasn’t been to London for thirteen years.

He hasn’t been to London, but somewhere else, and now he’s standing inside Remus’s house and he hasn’t been able to get father than the shoe rack. Remus looks at him like he’s seeing a ghost and maybe it’s partly true, in a way, Sirius isn’t the same than before. And Remus has changed, too. It’s chilly inside the house and it smells damp, Remus has his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his collar is lopsided, the front of his shirt is wet. His hair is lighter than before and messy in a way that makes it seem like Remus hasn’t looked himself from the mirror for some time. Remus stared at Sirius and Sirius doesn’t want to look back; it’s hard to see everything that is in Remus’s stare, most of it Sirius has tried to forget or remember. Remus must have known he’s not in prison anymore and Remus must have known he doesn’t have many people to turn into.

Surely he could go somewhere far away, America or Australia. He has thought about that, he has been standing at the harbour, looking at the sea and decided he doesn’t want to use his freedom for travelling. And thinking about the sea makes him feel sick in his stomach.

Sirius realises Remus hasn’t said anything yet and Sirius just stands in silence too, even though he would only want to eat something and maybe have a shower, but Remus looks like he’s not going to ask what Sirius would want. Remus looks like he’s going to either be sick or run away and Sirius can’t blame him. He takes a breath, dampness fills his lungs.

“Have you got cigarettes?”

It feels like a safe place to start and maybe he’s trying to remind Remus of what it was like before, what _they_ were like before. Remus moves, his legs move and he goes to another room. Sirius can hear voices, Remus is moving things around and Sirius stands in place and listens. He has never been there before and why would he have; it’s Remus’s father’s house, and he can’t figure why Remus is there. Last time he has heard of Remus thirteen years ago, he has been up north somewhere, Skye or somewhere like that. Sirius’s jaw clenches, his teeth scrape against each other. He can’t remember what the fuck happened back then.

Remus comes back. He has a soft packet of fags and matches with him and he hands them over to Sirius and makes sure their hands don’t touch. Sirius takes them, puts a cigarette between his teeth, looks at Remus, who nods. The matches are damp, like everything in there seems to be, and Sirius can’t understand why Remus is there. Smoke stays as a heavy cloud at the edge of the ceiling.

Remus moves again and this time Sirius follows him. His steps make the floorboards creak, on top of the carpet, the creaking gets lower. There is dust and sand on the floor and questions on Sirius’s tongue. He looks at Remus thought the smoke, Remus looks older, but Sirius still recognises the curves of his brows and the furrow between them. Time and freckles have changed Remus’s face, but it suits it. It suits Remus.

Sirius feels like swearing out loud, he isn’t sure if he has believed he could see Remus ever again. But there Remus is, silent but there, and Sirius doesn’t know what to do to make him speak, to make him do something. Sirius doesn’t remember if it has always been like this, or has his time in the prison disarm him from the ability to have a normal conversation. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he sits down. The sofa makes a sound like a meow, and Remus flinches at the noise. Fuck, Sirius thinks, maybe he shouldn’t have come there after all. The cigarette tastes like shit in his mouth, he knows they haven’t tasted that bad before and maybe he shouldn’t have come there at all. Only how could he not? How could he—

“What are you doing here?”

Remus’s voice is rough as if it hasn’t been used for a while. Remus stands in the middle of the room and looks a bit off from Sirius’s eyes, somewhere over him. Sirius wants to look what Remus is looking at, but it feels like giving up.

“I—” is all Sirius gets to say before Remus looks down at Sirius’s eyes and he can feel himself vibrating and his chest feels heavy and Remus really looks like he is going to retch, like he feels disgusted to see Sirius and _it shouldn’t have gone like this_.

“You killed Peter,” Remus says and his voice is hard and cold and everything else it has been before. “And James and Lily, they—you—They’re dead, too.” Remus’s words sound like it’s hard for him to utter the words and Sirius wonders if Remus has talked about it at all over the thirteen years.

Sirius looks back at Remus and holds. Remus looks back.

“True,” he says, turns to look at something to use as an ashtray; there is a mug on the floor that has an inch of old tea on the bottom of it. He sheds ash into the mug and sees from the corner of his eye as Remus grabs a hold of the bookshelf.

Sirius has planned what he should say. Many nights he has been laying on someplace or another, a month in the smallest bedroom of Andromeda and Ted’s house, some night outside under the sky, and he has been planning what to say when he finally sees Remus again. He knows Remus, he knows Remus has been thinking about all kinds of things; that Sirius has lost his mind or maybe that Peter has said something that has pissed Sirius off. And maybe James and Lily, fucking James and Lily, have been on his way and that’s why they are dead. Or maybe Remus thinks he is there to kill him, too. That maybe he would take a gun under his shirt and pointed it between Remus’s eyes and he’s saying something very witty or sad and then he would pull the trigger. And then he would shot himself. And after that, the newspapers would wonder what has made him do it and maybe in ten or twenty years someone would make a movie about them, and an unbearably beautiful man would act Sirius and in the last scene, just before the two last shots, the scripted Sirius would say something very romantic or mean.

He knows what he should say but Remus is staring at him, looking scared and grey, and the cigarette is burning between Sirius’s fingers and the air is damp and he can’t talk.

Sun shines from the window, casting a rectangular shape of light on the carpet and in the light dust moves in circles.

“Peter betrayed us,” Sirius says after a moment, his words are tight. Remus blinks once and lets go of the shelf. Sirius waits for Remus to say something, but when nothing happens, he continues speaking.

“Peter betrayed us,” he says again. “They told me they knew everything, fucking _everything_ , dates and names and they knew about Lily and Harry and they knew where we lived when we were eighteen. They knew it all and they were waiting for us.”

“Who’s they?” Remus asks.

“The police,” Sirius says, it’s not like Remus doesn’t know that. “Peter suggested, fuck, Peter suggested that James and Lily went ahead with another car and him and I would take the van and go after them, and I said it sounded like a good idea. We did that and when we got there, they shot James and Lily in the car and Peter jumped out of the van and I just knew. What he had done. And Peter said it, too.”

Remus is quiet. Sirius swallows, his eyes feel hot and stingy.

“Peter was fucking weird after Lily—when Harry was born. So fucking strange. I should have known he wasn’t quite right in the head, but I don’t think anyone of us could have thought he could do something like that. That he could just _tell_ them.”

Remus is still quiet, he only looks at him, and Sirius sees how Remus’s fingers jerk.

“He laughed when he ran away,” Sirius says and in his words, he can taste steel and hate and bitterness.

Then Remus turns around, Sirius thinks he might have heard a curse word. Sirius’s lungs rasp and only now he realises his fingers are shaking.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come there.

Sirius thinks he can remember Remus. He used to be different, younger, obviously, but different. And that different Remus from thirteen, fourteen years ago would have look at him with serious eyes and he would have said _Alright_ and it would have made Sirius feel better. That Remus would have sat beside him or come closer. _This_ Remus doesn’t say anything and this Remus only gets farther away and it feels horrible.

Sirius tries to listen to what Remus is doing, he expects to hear the front door opening and closing, but nothing happens. But Sirius is sure Remus won’t come back, only he does. Remus comes back with a gun in his hand, and Sirius knows that gun, and his chest feels tight and breathing is fucking hard all of the sudden. Remus looks at him from the doorway, with a gun. Sirius tries to laugh, he tries very hard, but it sounds like a grunt.

“Are you going to kill me, Remus?”

Remus’s hand grasps the gun, he takes a deep, shuddering breath and speaks with a voice Sirius can recognise: “You killed Peter.”

Now Sirius laughs. “Yeah, I fucking did,” he says and doesn’t look at the gun anymore. He looks at Remus. “What are you doing with that?”

Remus shakes his head.

“It’s yours,” he says. “Or used to be. You left it with me.”

Sirius realises Remus is not pointing the gun at him, but handing it to him. Sirius stays put.

“I’m not here to kill you,” he says slowly and something like a smile flashes on Remus’s lips.

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

“Then why the fuck are you here?” Remus asks and his frustration takes hold of Sirius, too.

“Did you hear a word I said?” Sirius asks and almost stands up, but Remus is still standing there with a gun in his head and he looks like he might accidentally shot Sirius, as a reflex, if Sirius made sudden movements. He has learned some things in prison.

“Fuck, _Remus_. Yes, Peter is dead because I shot him. But James and Lily are dead because of Peter and _that’s why I shot him_. I’m not going to fucking kill you, why the fuck would I want to kill you?”

Remus stared at him and Sirius doesn’t know what else he should say to make Remus understand, that Remus would put the gun down and sit next to him and say, _Alright_ , as Remus should. He waits for something to happen.

Eventually, Remus puts the gun down next to the telephone. There is a whole room and the strip of lightning between them.

  
  


*

  
  


They are sixteen years old when Sirius and Remus move to stay with Alphard. Alphard asks them and says it would be better for them there then with Andromeda and Ted and the kid. Sirius doesn’t think twice, Remus thinks too much. Remus knows what happens in the London house and Remus knows what kind of a person Orion is and that Alphard has betrayed them all, and how his family has kicked Alphard out of the house and the family. And now Alphard asks if Sirius and Remus want to move in with him and Sirius knows that means that is the moment he chooses his side.

But Sirius has already chosen and Remus knows that, and finally, Remus says _Alright_. They have a real bedroom there, not just an attic and two mattresses, they have a _bed_ , and one night when Alphard is away, they nick cigarettes and wine that tastes like ash, and Alphard has a record player and the most recent Pink Floyd album, and they are supposed to get a bit drunk and smoke a lot, but not long after they’ve started drinking, Remus kisses Sirius with his hands in Sirius’s hair. It’s not the first time they’ve done that, but it’s the first time they have a bed and it’s the first time they are properly alone, and Remus puts his hands under Sirius’s shirt, and Sirius wants to see Remus naked on the bed on his back, and his hands in Sirius’s hair and Sirius’s mouth on Remus’s cock and Sirius thinks that almost twenty years later, David Gilmour singing about two souls swimming in a fishbowl still makes him think of sex.

They live there for three weeks until the night the front door lock is shot and everyone becomes chaos.

Sirius knows even before anything happens, what is going to happen. Alphard knows too, Sirius can see it from his eyes. And Remus, Remus doesn’t know, Remus can’t know, for Remus hasn’t ever seen anything like that before. And all Sirius wants it to get Remus the fuck out of there, he doesn’t want Remus to see it, because Remus has never seen anything like that before.

Orion doesn’t come alone, he has Rodolphus Lestrange with him. Both of them have so much hate in their faces that Alphard and Sirius both know it’s personal. And Sirius knows it’s his fault. Orion has wanted Sirius to continue with the money laundering and drugs and radical right thinking. Sirius knows Bellatrix has tattooed the Odal rune into her skin and everyone is so fucking proud of that; that they have people like Bellatrix and Narcissa and _Regulus_ that know what’s good for them.

Everything happens so fast no one has time to do anything. Orion stands in the living room and point the gun between Alphard’s eyes and when he pulls the trigger, the noise of the shot echoes in Sirius’s ears for years. Blood splatters on the walls and on Remus’s face. Remus looks like he’s going to be sick at any moment and Sirius’s ears ring so loudly it feels like the sound is going to break his skull.

It’s Remus who moves first. Remus grabs Sirius’s arm and holds and Sirius looks at Orion and Orion looks back and Alphard’s dead body lays between them, Sirius can smell blood and gunpowder and when he asks _Why_ , Orion looks at him in the eyes and says, _That’s life,_ and Remus says, _Fuck, Sirius, move_. Remus pulls Sirius’s arm and leads him out of the apartment and Remus still has blood on his face and it looks almost black because all the other colour is gone from his face, and after a few hours they stop moving and Sirius mutters _I¨’m going to fucking kill them_ , Remus says: _Alright_ , sits next to him and comes close and doesn’t go away.

Now Remus only looks at him, until he doesn’t look at him anymore, but moves to sit down on the other end of the sofa. He takes a cigarette between his teeth and lights it up. Remus’s first intake of breath end in cough and Sirius looks at him and thinks that this is not his Remus.

“I haven’t smoked in years,” Remus says, it’s like an apology.

“Neither have I,” Sirius says. Remus looks at him, but turns away quickly and tries to smoke again. It goes a bit better the second time. No one says anything, and all Sirius wants to say is _Do you believe me_ and _You do believe me, don’t you_ , but he says nothing. The space between them on the sofa is new, that hasn’t happened before, not that Sirius can remember, and the space seems to be the thing that underlines how much time has gone by. Thirteen fucking years.

Sirius doesn’t know what he needs or wants. Freedom still feels strange and unfamiliar to him, he hasn’t had to remember when to eat or when to go to bed for over a decade. And now he should learn all that again and remember so much more, how to live his life and how to breathe.

And maybe, _maybe_ he needs Remus for that.

Remus smokes for a moment but leaves the cigarette half-done. Sirius looks at Remus’s hand wavering in the air between them until he realises to take the fag from his fingers. He tries hard no to touch the skin, but still Remus grunts, it sounds like a swallowed half of a word. Sirius puts the cigarette in his mouth, takes a drag of it; the end is still a bit wet from Remus’s lips.

If everything was like before, they would get drunk with something cheap or something very expensive, and they would figure everything out by fucking. Sirius would let Remus fuck him and Remus would let Sirius come close. They would open the window and smoke and cold air would come inside and maybe they’d kiss slowly. The night would come and they’d drink everything that is left, and they wouldn’t put on any clothes. They would talk about everything, in bed, naked, touching, Sirius would tell about his time in prison and Remus would tell him what he has done all that time alone and they would hate Peter together and everything would be fine.

Nothing is fine.

Time goes by and finally, Remus leans against the back of the sofa and closes his eyes. His hands are shaking on his lap.

“Sirius,” Remus says, and it’s the first time in way too long Sirius hears his own name spoken by Remus’s voice. “Why did you come here?”

Sirius wants to say something else, _Why do you think, fucking guess, Remus, where the fuck I should have gone if not there, I don’t have anywhere else to go, anyone else._ “Do you want me to go?” he asks, and it’s a dangerous question.

Remus opens his eyes and looks at him and Sirius looks back.

“No,” Remus says and he sounds lonely. “I don’t want you to go. But they are looking for you. And they know about me—wouldn’t they come straight here?”

Sirius scoffs. “Has anyone been there asking for me before?”

Remus shakes his head no, of course, no one has been asking, if they had, Remus wouldn’t be there.

“I haven’t talked about you to anyone,” Sirius says slowly, making sure Remus understands every word he says. “I don’t know exactly how much Peter told before, but you weren’t there when… when,” he says and swallows. Remus was not there, he was in Scotland, and Sirius has hated him for that.

Remus nods.

“If they wanted you,” Sirius continues, “they would have come to get you.”

“But why?” Remus asks. “Why did you come _here_?”

Sirius bites his teeth together hard, Remus isn’t going to let it go and it makes him anxious. “Because you’ve hated me for over ten years even though you haven’t known everything,” he says. Remus shakes his head again but Sirius doesn’t believe him. But he lets it go.

Remus bites his lip and for a moment he looks a bit calmer than before and Sirius breathes easier for the first time since he has knocked on the door.

“Make some tea, would you,” Sirius says. “And I haven’t eaten anything for two days.”

Remus lets out a noise that could be a laugh.


	3. Chapter 3

_and he said: I’ve lost my head  
can you see it? can you see it?  
belly aches while you’re in bed  
can you feel it? can you feel it?  
(The 1975 – Lostmyhead)_

May  
1994

The sun rises over the sea in the mornings. Remus stands outside, his trousers are wet from the ankles down from the dew, his shoes are wet through his socks. He has put on the first jumper he has found, it’s his father’s old one, there are holes in it and the hem is shapeless and dampness has made a home in the knit, and he’s cold.

His sleep has been in little pieces, he has been woken up by nightmares every hour or two, he has been listening to the grandfather clock, the ticking and the strokes every hour, until he has given up. He has been certain he has been able to hear Sirius breathing from the living room, but he thinks he can still hear it when Sirius is inside and he is outside. It’s just past five in the morning and before getting out of the bed, Remus has been lying there in the damp sheets, and his skin has felt wrong and Sirius has been too close.

He thinks about going back inside, it’s cold and windy, his teeth are clattering and the wet trouser legs are clinging to his skin and all the dampness on his skin feels terrible. His skin feels like it’s full of ants, everything is tingly and it makes him feel uneasy. His head is hurting and his thoughts are going too fast and too slow at the same time. In his father’s house, is Sirius, and Remus doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing.

He gives in, he always gives in. If he didn’t go back inside, Sirius would find him outside. Remus can’t run away from him, not even if he tried. Not even if he wanted to, and that’s not really what he wants to do. He wants to get his head straight and he wants to feel like he’s in control of the situation; he is not. He is in a thick mist of unreality, and he hasn’t probably quite yet understand that Sirius is _right there_. It feels horrible and it feels like something he has been waiting for thirteen years.

Admitting that makes Remus’s throat feel too tight and something heavy pushes under his ribcage, and breathing is hard, even in the morning dew.

He goes inside, brushes his shoes on the carpet and leaves them next to the door. He goes into the kitchen and Sirius is leaning against the counter with a steaming mug in his hands and there is something so familiar yet unknown in him.

  
  


*

  
  


That year when Remus turns sixteen, he and Sirius have known each other for years. Thinking back, it seems almost weird. He has moved with his mother, from Merthyr Tydfil to London, because his parents have split up and his mother has a new boyfriend and the new boyfriend has a lot of children and suddenly Remus has to call them his siblings. He is twelve or thirteen when he sees Sirius for the first time. There is an enormous house close to theirs, with high windows and heavy curtains, and from that house comes out a boy with black, chin-length hair and a white button-up shirt. Remus has looked at him from the other side of the road and wished, _Notice me_ , and he still remembers the way Sirius’s eyes have lightened up having seen him for the first time. And even though Sirius is at least five inches shorter than Remus and he has to raise his chin to look Remus in the eyes, Remus has never felt so small.

And then Remus is almost sixteen, Sirius has already turned sixteen two months ago, and they are sitting on the hard benches  of at Victoria station. People walk by and Sirius is rolling himself a cigarette. Sirius’s hair is longer and he has grown three inches and he has cut holes into his jeans and his thin knees are showing. He has a bruise on the left one. Remus has a new shirt his father has sent him for Christmas, it’s tickling him at the wrists and neck and Remus feels hot and his shoes chafe, and then Sirius says he has met a boy.

“Who?” Remus asks and he can remember the way Sirius turns to look at him, his tongue out, wetting the cigarette paper and Remus can’t stop looking at Sirius’s mouth.

“Potter,” Sirius says and his voice has excitement in it and Remus can tell he has been dying to tell that to Remus. Sirius rolls the cigarette between his fingers and it’s the first time Remus is afraid Sirius might leave him behind. Remus is not very interesting, not to Sirius anyway, but he knows who the Potter’s are. And Potter’s are interesting and dangerous and forbidden, everything Remus is not.

They get into the  tube, but they get two stops before the nearest one from home. Sirius says he wants to smoke on the way, and besides, they aren’t in any hurry, Sirius reminds him. They never are, because Sirius’s home has too much empty space and Remus’s home has too little. Remus says nothing, they take the stairs and get out on to the dark street. Remus can feel Sirius’s eyes on him, it makes him feel tingly and uncomfortable. It’s the end of December and it’s raining wet snow and the wet street reflects street lights and colours. Water gets into Remus’s shoes. They walk slowly, it’s almost midnight and no one is expecting them to be anywhere. They have spent Christmas together and no one has even realised Remus has been away.

Hair gets damp when falling snow melts on it, the jacket collar lets snow in. Remus is cold and he stares at his shoes until Sirius bumps into his arm and offers the end of his cigarette. They stop under a canopy in front of a closed restaurant, snow doesn’t fall into their eyes there. Sirius’s hair is wet too,  it trickles on his face and a little absent-mindedly Sirius moves it aside with his whole palm. Remus remembers how Sirius’s second-hand leather jacket has creaked when Sirius’s hand has moved, and the gesture has been so full of youth.

It’s rather dim where they are standing, but when a car drives past them, Remus can see Sirius looking at him with narrow eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Sirius asks, leaning closer, almost like he’s trying to see him better.

“Nothing,” Remus answers. He doesn’t even like smoking much, but he still does, because Sirius has said it looks good on him.

“You’re thinking about that Potter boy,” Sirius states, he doesn’t ask, he just says it, and it makes Remus anxious how Sirius always knows. Remus doesn’t say anything, he only shrugs. His jacket feels heavy when it’s wet.

“You’re jealous,” Sirius says.

Remus doesn’t look at Sirius, Sirius always  _knows_ , and because he wants to say that he doesn’t want that Sirius has anyone else than him. It has always been just them two, and Remus certainly doesn’t have anyone else than Sirius and they have made a fucking blood oath. It has been stupid and they were kids back then, but Remus doesn’t want to share Sirius with anyone else. The scar is still visible on his palm and he knows Sirius’s scar is there, too.

Years later Remus remembers how cold and wet it has been standing there, what the cigarette has tasted like in his mouth and how he has been thinking that it’ll be the end, Sirius has gotten sick of him and want to move to the next person. He has to hand Sirius over, he has had him for three years already. Three years is a long time when he is almost sixteen. Remus gives the cigarette back to Sirius, but Sirius lets it fall to the ground between his fingers.

Remus looks at Sirius, in the eyes and then on the mouth and his inside go wild and Remus thinks that he could be something exciting and dangerous and a bit forbidden.

They’ve never actually talked about it, but one time Sirius has said to him that he would like to kiss a boy and he has looked at Remus and with a challenge in his voice, asked what Remus thinks about that. And Remus’s heart has been hammering inside his chest and his voice has been shaky when he has said he would like to kiss a boy, too,  and probably more than a girl,  only he has been thinking about kissing Sirius, not just any boy. And Sirius has smiled at him and Remus thinks that Sirius has been expecting it, he has been waiting for Remus to do something, teas ing  him, and he has always known.

Remus doesn’t let himself to have much time to think. He has been thinking about it so many times; how he would gather all his strength and he would just do it, or maybe Sirius would be the one who’d do it first. Remus takes a half a step towards Sirius, and Sirius glances at his feet, and when Sirius looks back at him, he has had a tiny grin on his lips, and Remus has pressed his mouth to them.

Sirius’s mouth tastes like rain and cigarette. Nothing else is touching, only their lips, and it doesn’t take long. Remus has to lean back to take a breath because he has been holding it and his head is humming. His bones shiver and his fingers  are prickling, Sirius's mouth is half-open, and Sirius looks at Remus and Remus is petrified. Then Sirius closes his mouth, licks his lower lip and puckers his lips to hide the spreading smile. Remus lets out the air from his lungs. He wants to put his fingers into Sirius’s wet hair and he wants to press Sirius against the dark restaurant window and kiss him so hard it would make Sirius moan.

“Okay,” Sirius says slowly, smiles a little pass Remus, yanks the collar of his jacket up and starts walking again.

  
  


*

  
  


R emus sits at the table, looking at his father’s old tablecloth that is coloured circles of tea and coffee. Sometimes Remus’s hands shake so violently that liquids in cups overflow in waves and today is one of those days. Tea is  dilute as Remus has poured in too much milk and instead of tea it tastes like hot, watery milk. He grimaces drinking it, and at the same time Sirius pours copper tasting tap water into a glass and just like Remus, he grimaces drinking it. The kitchen is silent apart from the rattling noises the fridge is making. Remus wonders how absurdly normal it is that it’s an early morning and he needs to go buy milk and bread.

In the living room, the gun is laying next to the telephone, but sometime over the night, Sirius has taken all the bullets out and put them on the other side of the tiny table. Remus doesn’t know if he has done it for Remus or himself.

Remus feels he is more awake than in years, but his head is full of clammy thoughts.

“Are you going to talk to me at all?” Sirius asks. Remus turns to look at him. Sirius hasn’t sat down all morning. A duvet is muddled at the end of the sofa, the blanket has almost come out, and the pillowcase has wrinkles and probably Sirius’s hair on it. The sofa looks slept in, but Sirius has dark shadows underneath his eyes, so Remus isn’t exactly sure if he has slept.

“I need to go to the store,” Remus says. Sirius raises his glass to his lips and looks at Remus over the rim of the glass, but says nothing until he has emptied the glass.

“Alright,” Sirius says. “I’m coming with.”

Remus kicks his knee on the table by accident, things on it tremble, and a spoon chimes against a mug.

“Sirius—” Remus starts but his voice gets stuck into his throat and he needs to swallow and clear his throat before he can say anything else. “You can’t come.”

Sirius snorts and Remus hears twenty-one years old Sirius in the noise and it makes his heart beat in an irregular rhythm. Sirius crosses his arms to his chest, the sleeves of his—Remus’s father’s old—shirt raise towards his elbows and Remus can see how the bones move underneath the skin.

“Why not?” Sirius asks and, shit, Remus almost _sees_ Sirius at twenty-one.

“Because fuck,” Remus says, because fuck Sirius, he should know that he can’t just walk to the village and think no one would read the news or watch the telly or listen to the radio, that no one would recognise Sirius as Sirius Black. Some people live in the village after all, and even if they are in Wales and Welsh people might think Sirius Black is a problem for England to handle, Sirius is _there_ and Sirius is now a problem for Remus to handle, and fuck Sirius for thinking Remus would let him go anywhere.

He doesn’t say any of that.

“They are looking for you,” he says.

“Yes, they do,” Sirius says with a tone that indicates the matter is as significant as the weather. “And they haven’t found me yet.”

“And what then if they do?” Remus asks. Sirius shrugs and Remus wants to hit his head against the kitchen cabinets, because suddenly, Sirius standing in his father’s kitchen is not Sirius Black who has escaped prison, but Sirius Black who has bought a gun for the first time and stolen more than just vodka and fivers.

That Sirius Black, who irritates Remus more than anything, that Sirius Black, who is so fucking proud and arrogant, who thinks everything is easy and achievable for him. That Sirius Black who makes Remus hard and pissed off in a way that only confuses him. That Sirius Black who rebels and has taught Remus to be the same; Remus wouldn’t have said yes to any of it otherwise, he wouldn’t have say  _Let’s see_ , when Sirius leaned towards him and asked for the second time:  _How difficult would it be to rob a bank?_

The first time Remus has said,  _Difficult_ . And a few days later Sirius has come back to him with a revolver, he has handed over to Remus and it has felt heavy in his palm, and Sirius has looked him in the eyes and his fingers have still touched Remus’s wrist, and he has asked a gain. Then Remus has laughed a little and looked back at Sirius and said;  _Let’s see_ . 

“You are not coming with,” Remus says and tries to sound strict. Sirius barks out a laugh and Remus can hear the unsaid, _Let’s see_. 

  
  


*

  
  


I f things were different, Remus might love the village a little. He likes it there sometimes, it feels strangely homely, all the narrow streets of the old fishing village, the smell of the sea and grey stone houses. Remus would prefer living in a city, Cardiff if he  had to stay in Wales, Manchester if he  had the courage to move to England. However, he feels safer in the countryside, even though it might be an illusion of safety.

The sky has turned into rainy grey and Remus can almost hear the sea. Maybe he likes the village or maybe he just tolerates it. He knows where all the important little boutiques and shops are, and there is always the same lady behind the counter in the pharmacy, and she always smiles at him although she must know what his receipt is for.

He walks slower than normal and still Sirius leaves behind. Remus has lost, of course. Sirius has gotten what he has wanted, of course, but Remus has made Sirius wear a hat and then he has ordered Sirius to his bedroom and he has chosen new clothes for Sirius. Something that makes him look less like a fugitive. Something that makes him look less like Sirius Black. Just before they have left the house, Remus has stood behind Sirius, and he has gathered all Sirius’s hair and pushed it under the collar of his shirt, and suddenly Sirius has looked younger and more familiar, even with Remus’s ugliest cardigan. The hem of the cardigan  hangs almost at Sirius’s knees.

It’s hard for Remus to think Sirius has been our of the prison for a year, as Sirius looks around awestruck, like he’s seeing everything for the first time; it’s like the small village in Northern Wales that smells like sea salt and rain, is much more intriguing than it actually is. Remus wants to ask what Sirius has been doing all those months before coming there. And he wants to ask if Sirius is going to stay there, with him, in Ll ŷ n. He wants to ask Sirius what the hell he is supposed to think about all this, but he can’t ask any of that now. Some other time, Remus thinks and hopes he’s going to keep that promise to himself. Maybe some other time he will ask and maybe Sirius will answer.

“So, where are we going?” Sirius asks.

“To the store,” Remus answers. He should go somewhere else, too, to the pharmacy, and maybe he should get the bus to the nearest city and go to a supermarket.

“Right,” Sirius says, he sounds amused and Remus doesn’t like it. “What do you actually, like, do?”

“Do? What do you mean what do I _do_?” Remus asks.

“With your life,” Sirius says and it’s obvious he has tried to put it some other way, but his tackles way of saying feels fine. It’s Sirius, after all.

“Nothing,” Remus answers. It’s the truth. He doesn’t have a job, he has been too afraid to get one in the fear of being recognised, and besides, he has a house and some money. Some of it is from his father and some of it from all the tens of thousands. He doesn’t have a _lot_ of it, but enough to get through. _A lot_ has gone into hospital bills and medicines, but Remus doesn’t want to tell Sirius that.

He can see from Sirius’s face, Sirius is not happy with his answer, but Remus doesn’t have time to  think about that. He opens the door to a tiny shop and gestures Sirius to get in.

“Could you get the milk?” Remus asks. Sirius glances at him, but does as he is told. Of course, Sirius is asking things. And he knows what Sirius wants to ask for real; Sirius wants to know about money. Their money. There has been a time they’ve had _a lot_ of it, and now it’s rather clear Sirius doesn’t have any money whatsoever.

Remus doesn’t want to think about money.

Sirius comes back with two cartons of milk, and he says something about a man who has tried to talk to him, but obviously, Sirius doesn’t know a word of Welsh. Remus turns to look back at the man Sirius is talking about, but the man is focused on his shopping, he doesn’t look like he has recognised Sirius. But Remus’s insides are in knots and for a moment he regrets everything.

  
  


*

  
  


When they get back at the house, Remus has taken his medicine and made tea, and half-way through he has changed his mind and made coffee instead. He has opened and closed books and look at the rising pile of dirty dishes. They have had lunch and after that, Sirius has gone out, to  _take a walk_ , but Remus has seen him from the window and Sirius has been just standing there in the high grass, his face towards the sea, chain-smoking new cigarettes Remus has bought. Then Sirius has come back in and asked if he could have a wash.

Now Remus sits at the dinner table, his ankles crossed under the table. An open newspaper in front of him and a heavy weight somewhere underneath his lungs. He thinks about that how just an hour or two ago they have been sitting there, on the opposite sides of the table, plates in front of them and the window has been open and they could hear the screams of seagulls and it has felt like the eighties again.

Remus leans on his hands, elbows on the table, palms over his eyes, he tries to remember how to breathe. It’s ridiculous to think back, a few days is enough, when all his days have melded into one other, and now he listens to the coughing pipes and water hitting the bathroom floor, and it’s Sirius who’s using the shower and Remus can’t believe it.

And he is not sure if he believes Sirius or not. He has hated Sirius for thirteen years and now he feels like he would have done the same if it’s true what Sirius has told him. Fuck, Remus would have shot Peter, too. He would have shot  _James_ if it was James who had betrayed them. He would have shot himself if he ever had the courage.  And Remus  _wants_ to believe Sirius, what else could he do. But at the same time, he feels like he could never trust Sirius again; Sirius has, after all,  _killed_ Peter. And if it had been Remus who betrayed them, would Sirius have killed him? Or would Sirius have undressed him and fucked him silent and afterwards stroked his head and whispered over and over again  _It’s all right, it doesn’t matter_ .

The bathroom gets silent and so does the whole house. Remus can hear the clock ticking and Remus wonders how he is still sane although the ticking of the clock digs deep into him and sticks into his pulse. The bathroom door opens and Remus raises his head from his hands. Lights and colours run over his vision and he feels a bit sick, and then Sirius comes to the kitchen wearing nothing else than a towel.

They look at each other for a long moment.

“Could you borrow me some socks?” Sirius asks them.

“Socks,” Remus repeats dully.

“Yes.”

Remus stands up and walks past Sirius, not looking at him, but he can hear Sirius following him to the bedroom. Remus opens up the closet door and stares the drawer he has put all his socks in. He crouches to look for a pair that is the most  unused.

“And maybe some pants, too.”

Remus turns his head so hastily he almost bangs it against the open closet door. Sirius is leaning on the door frame, apparently unbothered by any of it. Remus can see his ribs under his skin. It seems, Remus realises only then that Sirius has come there without any belongings.

“Why don’t you have any with you?” Remus asks.

Sirius turns to look at the ceiling as he speaks. “I was in a hurry. Everything I had was left behind, not that I had a lot of things anyway but—”

“Everything was left behind?”

“I didn’t have time to think about it,” Sirius says.

“You didn’t—” Remus’s other hand is holding the closet door and the other is in the sock drawer, and it takes him a moment to understand what Sirius is saying. “What the hell? Where did you even come?”

Sirius sighs. “Give me some pants first, would you?”

Remus swears out loud, finds Sirius a pair of underwear and some socks, hands them over to him and tells him to put them on. Sirius takes the clothes and goes to the living room. Remus sits on the bed, it creaks under his weight.

The past two days have been a lot. Remus is tired because he has slept so poorly, and he is afraid because he doesn’t know what is happening, and he has Sirius in his father’s house, putting on his underwear and it seems weirdly like the  _seventies_ . Fucking Sirius and fucking Peter and fuck his life that has become this. And as he is on the topic, fuck everything else, too. His mother, his mother’s new boyfriend and the five kids and fuck London and the Black family’s London house too close to theirs. And fuck James and James’s father’s van and the fucking patrol station James had found Lily.

It’s almost ironic that everything has started with them, with Remus and Sirius, and he feels that everything will end with them, Sirius and Remus.

Remus stands up. When he goes to the living room, Sirius is in the kitchen making tea. Sirius glances over his shoulder at him and Remus sits on the sofa. It makes a wailing sound. Everything in the house creaks and squeaks and wails and  howls. Maybe it’s his father’s ghost who knows there are two murderers in the house now and every corner and hole full of unsaid things.

Sirius gets the tea ready and comes to the living room with to cups. If they were twenty years old again, they would drink wine straight from the bottle, but apparently, they have lived over that time and now they drink tea. Remus’s tea has a splash of milk in it and it pisses Remus off to know Sirius remembers little things like that.

Sirius sits down next to him, frowns to his cup, takes a breath and starts.

“I was staying at Andromeda and Ted’s for the last month or so. Andy kind of asked—or I don’t know if she actually did, but she found me and told me they have the attic empty if I needed a place to stay. You remember their daughter, right? She’s a fucking _cop_ , or training to be one anyway, and it’s so fucking funny when you think about it. Dora knows nothing, and she’s living in London, so I went to Andy’s.”

“Andy called me,” Remus mumbles. Tea is too hot and the roof of his mouth burns. “When you escaped.”

“Yeah, she told me,” Sirius says. “And she told me you hang up on her and after that, she couldn’t get a hold of you again.”

“I unplugged the telephone,” Remus scoffs and if he’s not wrong, Sirius smiles a little, but hides it into his cup.

“Sounds like you,” Sirius says and then she’s silent for a moment. “Bellatrix killed some police couple and she’s locked up for that. Andy says it’s fine, she thinks Bellatrix has lost it a bit.”

Remus doesn’t say anything. He remembers Bellatrix and her husband, Rodolphus, and he remembers how Sirius has shot Rodolphus in the face. And he remembers a lot of things he would like to forget.

“Anyway, it didn’t take too long for Andy’s other sister to find out where I was, and Narcissa’s husband is still in touch with some of Orion’s lot, and, well, I couldn’t stay there,” Sirius says and sounds much too unbothered.

“Who’s the husband?” Remus asks. Sirius runs his fingers through his wet hair.

“Lucius Malfoy," Sirius laughs.

Remus doesn’t laugh when he realises who Sirius is talking about. And neither does Sirius really, he stares at the content of his cup.

“Malfoy isn’t much of a threat himself, but he knows people.”

“Who do you—”

“At least Dolohov, Rosier and Avery. Andy is quite sure Karkaroff is back in the UK,” Sirius shrugs and Remus hates it. Then Sirius takes the deepest breath yet, bracing himself. “One of them killed Regulus. Or Regulus killed himself, I don’t know, but they are considering Regulus as a traitor.”

“Fuck,” Remus says. “Fuck, Sirius.”

“I know.”

“And you came _here_.” Remus’s voice sounds harsh and cold even to his own ears. He’s angry. Sirius looks at him.

“Remus,” Sirius starts, but doesn’t continue. Remus puts his teacup on the floor, his hands have started shaking so hard hot tea has splattered on to his lap.

“You have the police and your father’s men on your heels and you came here. Are you sorry I’m still alive or—or in prison, like everyone else is, and now you want to doom me too?”

“Remus,” Sirius says again and for the first time, since he’s come there, Remus can read his emotions on his face; Sirius is panicked, lost, scared. Good, Remus thinks and clenches his hands into fists so he won’t show Sirius how fucking scared he is. He can barely contain himself, he wants to broke something, and Sirius’s skull seems like a good enough thing.

“Remus,” Sirius says. “Listen to me and listen fucking carefully. I came here, because I know I can’t get out of this alone. But with you, I have a chance. And with me, _you_ have a chance. Fuck, Remus, if I wanted you to be dead or in prison, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Fuck,” Remus whispers, because Sirius is right and Remus’s hands are shaking and his heart beats in his throat.

“ _Remus_ ,” Sirius says and Remus flinches as he feels Sirius’s cold fingers curling around his wrist. Sirius holds him in a powerful grasp. “We can’t survive this alone and you know that.”

Remus stares at Sirius’s fingers and of course, he knows.

And that is the worst thing about it.


	4. Chapter 4

_t_ _ime feels like it's changed, I don't feel the same_

_t_ _ry your best,_ _y_ _eah, I know_

_e_ _mas eht leef t'nod I-I-I --s'ti ekil sleef emi_ _t  
(The 1975 – Yeah I Know)_

June  
1994

The grandfather clock chimes early morning hours and Sirius’s legs are too long for the sofa. Most of the night, he has lost count, all the days have been the same, but most of the night he has bent his knees and even though the sofa whines and creaks underneath him, he has been able to sleep for some hours at least. But then there are these nights when he stares at the ceiling and the morning grows lighter moment by moment and sleep has forgotten him. He has gotten used to it, insomnia and nights turning into the early morning as he lays awake, but it feels terrible now; with the clock and the morning’s cold light, and he is not in prison anymore. He’s there, in Remus’s father’s too short sofa, the whole house hums and whines and Sirius presses his eyes shut as hard as he can.

He has been there for over a  _week._ He doesn’t know what the day has been when he has knocked on the door, and he is not quite sure how many days it has been, maybe nine or ten. Maybe less, but be as it may, he is  _there_ . And alive, but he has to remind himself of that now and then, that air moves in and out of his lungs and sometimes he has a headache and, not often but sometimes he feels hungry and he can  find his pulse points if he really tries. He is there, in fucking Wales because of Remus  _again_ and a lot of things are the same at before.

Before, Remus has wanted out of all of it, out of him, and run away to Wales. And then Sirius has found him again and asked on a weak moment  _Can I stay here for a while_ and Remus has given him the permission. But  _then_ they have talked to each other and Sirius has had a lot of drugs with him and  Remus has made him tea wearing nothing else than pants and sometimes nothing at all. And then they have known what they are doing and what they want.

Now they don’t.

Sirius would want to talk. About anything, really, the weather or something, but Remus says nothing to him if Sirius doesn’t ask first. For hours at the time, Remus goes into his bedroom and closes the door behind him and Sirius doesn’t dare to follow him.

“You’re not going fucking anywhere,” is the last thing Remus has said to him and it has been _days_.

The clock ticks. Sirius turns to his side, but the sofa makes such a horrible sound, he stops moving in the middle of turning and after a while, his abs start hurting with all the  balancing . In a moment he would give in and go outside and he would stand with a burning cigarette between his fingers and he would think back to that time when a night like that tasted like vodka Peter has stolen, and James’s hair has been on his eyes, and Remus has leaned against a wall looking at Sirius and thought Sirius wouldn’t notice or look back. But Sirius has noticed and he has looked back, at least when Peter has passed out and James has gone somewhere and they have been left alone with Remus, and Remus has come closer and Sirius pressed his whole palm between Remus’s legs, and Remus has looked at him with dark eyes and then kissed Sirius’s chin and neck and breathed wet air against Sirius’s skin, and Sirius’s jeans have felt tight and Remus has moaned a little, and then James has come back and said he is going to  steal his father’s van and where the fuck is Peter and should we just drink until the morning?

Sirius sighs to himself and gets off the sofa. It wails and  creaks. He puts on trousers and a jumper, they’re both Remus’s, and he has had to cuff the trousers . He has a matchbox in the trouser pocket and a half-empty packet of cigarettes next to the telephone; the gun is still laying there, neither of them has touched it after the first night. Sirius is just going out of the door when Remus’s bedroom door opens and in the dim light stands Remus. His hair is messy and his shirt is the wrong way up and his tired eyes look at Sirius.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Sirius asks. Remus shrugs and just looks at him, and Sirius looks back and he is so tired of Remus’s silence. He doesn’t remember Remus being like that, although he can’t trust his memory wholeheartedly, he _remembers_ but he isn’t exactly sure what is real and what is not. Sirius takes a breathe, waits if Remus is going to say something, he rolls the cigarette between his fingers and listens to the slight crackling sound the tobacco makes inside the roll of paper, and when Remus says nothing, he goes outside. Only when he steps on the porch, Sirius realises he doesn’t have any shoes on, but he is not going to go back inside to get them, he curls his toes on the dank wood and lights up the cigarette.

In a way, he has been missing night like that, but in his youth, they have been different; full of alcohol and  _youth_ and whatever, and maybe they have talked back then, or fucked or something. Now there is only silence in all the meanings of the word.

The door opens and closes, Sirius doesn’t turn to look, he knows it’s Remus. There is no one else there, just Sirius and Remus and Wales and the sea and the seagulls. The porch creaks when it’s walked on, and when Sirius looks at Remus, Remus stands next to him with his arms crossed to his chest, a  familiar crease between his eyebrows. Remus isn’t looking back at him.

“I’ve been thinking,” Remus says and Sirius wants to point out that he must have been thinking a lot since he hasn’t been talking for days, but he says nothing and takes a drag of his cigarette to keep his mouth shut.

“We can’t leave,” Remus says. “If we left we wouldn’t know anything.”

Sirius doesn’t reply. He has been thinking that, too, but his reasoning differs. If he left, ran away abroad, it would feel like giving up, like knuckling under it all and fleeing. Giving up isn’t very him.

“They’d catch you on the border anyway,” Remus continues.

Sirius blows out smoke and twirls the taste of tobacco inside his mouth. It pisses him off that when Remus speaks, he is right. He has been always right, almost always. They couldn’t have done anything without Remus. Sirius couldn’t have done anything without Remus.

Sirius can’t do anything without Remus.

“So we’re staying here,” Sirius says.

Remus is still not looking at him. “No one has come here before.”

“I did,” Sirius says and bites down to his tongue.

Remus turns to look at him, almost smiling. “You don’t count.”

Sirius doesn’t ask why. The thought of having to stay put makes his fingertips tingle in a way that makes him feel restless,  constrained, claustrophobic. 

“Fine,” he says. “Let’s stay here.” He turns and gives the rest of the cigarette to Remus, even though he hasn’t asked for it, and goes back inside. Maybe it’s time for him to stop running.

  
  


*

  
  


Sirius can remember some morning. Mornings in the London house have been creamware to a long table, too hot tea and silver spoons. They have had a cook and a maid and someone has done all the table setting for them, and Sirius has never seen it done. Orion has drunk his burning hot tea with two gulps, opened the newspaper, lighted a cigar and then with the cigar between his teeth he has been scoffing to the news. Walburga has been sitting with her back straight on the other side of the table, untouched food in the plate in front of him, shadows under her cheekbones growing darker with every passing morning. And Regulus has been kicking Sirius’s chins under the table and Sirius can remember Regulus’s badly hidden grin and scrunched up nose and Regulus has been so young back then, maybe ten, and Sirius hasn’t been much older himself.

And Sirius remembers the first morning in Andromeda and Ted’s attic, when he has run away from home and so has Remus, and they have pushed two  thin mattresses next to each other and Remus has been whining that laying on his side his shoulder touches the floor. The sun has shined from the window and  under the attic floor, they have heard the muffled sounds of a radio playing  _Layla_ and someone clattering dishes. Sirius has  pushed his toes against Remus’s chins and played with the waistband of Remus’s pants. Remus has looked at him like he hasn’t been quite awake yet, but Sirius has kissed him awake and his whole body has been full of  _freedom_ and he has shoved his hand into Remus’s underwear, and it has truly been the first time in Sirius’s life has been free to what he wants, and he has wanted to make Remus come. Remus has moaned a little against Sirius’s  neck and all of Sirius’s bones have been pressing against the floor despite the mattress, and Remus’s hair has smelled like shampoo and cigarette smoke, and then Remus has  come beautifully, messily, and Sirius has wiped his hand on the sheets and thought that he might get a bit obsessed with the way red  splotches have appeared on Remus’s neck and face, and the way Remus has looked at him with dazed eyes and the way Remus has kissed him so  very  carefully and slowly.

He remembers the morning after their first bank.  He and James have been listening to the radio, Remus and Peter have been sleeping in the back of the van. The driver side door has been open and volume on the radio high. A yellow  field in front of them and a sunrise in August and James has been rolling a cigarette and Sirius’s fingers have trembled still, after twelve hours. James has lighted a cigarette for him and handed it to him. The side of the van has been cold against his back and on the radio, the news reporter has been talking about them. Or not about  _them_ but about a robbery in a bank in Yorkshire, and about the police asking for eyewitnesses. James has looked at Sirius and the sun has somehow reflected from his dark skin, and James has looked at him and smiles and Sirius has smiled back, and he has had  _everything_ .

And he remembers bad mornings, when hangover has been bounding in his stomach and in his head and his mouth has tasted like vomit and he has hated everyone, and Peter has tried to offer him a glass of water but he has spat on Peter’s feet. And more morning like that, with hangovers and bad feelings and anxiety and wrong beds.

He remembers mornings he has spent with Lily when James has been too drunk on vodka or love and Lily has smiled at Sirius with her knees against her chest and she has drawn shapes to the floor, and Sirius has looked at her and thought that fuck, Lily Evans, James’s patrol station love. For some reason, James has been able to get her to come with them, and suddenly there has been five of them instead of four, and Sirius isn’t sure anyone, which one of them is the spare one. With Lily, Sirius has felt like the redundant party and maybe he has been correct in a way. And Lily has been smiling at him despite everything and somehow Sirius has realised why James has wanted Lily.

And he remembers that morning when he has come back from Cuba and stood outside of Remus’s door and rang the doorbell until Remus has opened the door, and he remembers how Remus has pulled his hair as he has kissed him, and how Remus has bitten Sirius’s lower lip, and Sirius remembers how it has felt like  desisting and not at all. He has had a real warrant of him and Remus has been in the wrong place for months and everything has been unfamiliar and messy. Yet still, Remus has pushed him against the wall and started unbuttoning Sirius’s jeans and kneeled between Sirius’s legs, and Sirius remembers how he has laughed breathlessly that  _Who would have thought Wales was better than Cuba,_ and Remus has laughed against his thigh that  _You should have gone to Mexico._

And he remembers the first morning in prison. And the next. And the next. And after that he has no sharp memories before the first morning outside of the prison, he has had a sleepless night behind him and he has stood next to a road and a truck has driven past him and Sirius’s veins have been full of his will to live.

And then there is this morning. Sirius makes coffee and Remus makes tea. The sofa is still too short for Sirius and he is too old for, his every limb is hurting and he has a headache again, but that is the price he has to pay. Remus is making himself toast and Sirius realises Remus is dressed and his movements are hurried. He can see it even though Remus tries to hide it. Sirius looks at Remus for so long until Remus notices. Remus looks back and puts his toast on the table.

“I need to go to Cardiff,” Remus says with a tight voice.

“Why?” Sirius asks. They have talked about staying there and now Remus is going to Cardiff of all places. Remus clenches his jaw and Sirius can hear his teeth grinding against each other.

“Because I have to,” Remus answers.

“Because you have to _what?_ ” Sirius challenges. Remus eats his toast and doesn’t answer.

“Remus.”

Remus sighs, stands up and doesn’t look at Sirius. “I have to go to the hospital.”

“Hospital—Remus?”

Remus doesn’t turn to look at him nor does he say anything. Remus goes to the door and puts on his jacket even though the weather is much nicer now and the mornings are sunny and warm and the wind coming from the sea is not cold. Sirius stands up too and follows Remus.

“Fuck, Remus,” Sirius says and he can’t hide his frustration. “Talk to me. Why do you need to go to the hospital?”

Remus stops with his hand on the door handle. Sirius’s breathing catches as he waits. And maybe he has already guessed; he has watched Remus taking pills every day, and one sleepless night he has given in to his curiosity and found out what the package has said and he has been wondering why zidovudine has sounded so familiar to him.  Of course, he has known about it, the news has reached him, too. At least two men in prison have been quarantined and then buried and Sirius has been sure he has had it too, he must had, and he has asked to be tested, but he hasn’t had it after all. It has felt both ridiculous and relieving and after that, he has sort of forgotten the whole thing, it hasn’t touched him since that. He hasn’t actually known anyone who has it, who has died of it, and after all, in the prison, he hasn’t seen much of anything.

“Let’s talk later,” Remus says and his voice is thin. “I need to go, the bus comes shortly.”

The door closes behind him and the noise echoes in Sirius’s ears, his head feels heavy. He is left in the entryway and he has unasked questions in his mouth.

All the sharp details of the morning are drawn into Sirius’s mind, the ticking of the clock is like a timebomb and Sirius wonders how Remus can still think clearly there. The house feels like it’s breathing in the same rhythm with him, it feels bad and comforting at the same time. The silence is no easier without Remus there. Sirius is lost in the house even if there is only two rooms, a small kitchen and a bathroom where the pipes cough brown water.

First Sirius sits in the kitchen, then in the living room. He looks at the telephone, he wants to call someone, Andy, maybe, or maybe he wants to call James but obviously he can’t and thinking about that makes him unbearably sad. He can’t talk about Remus to Remus, and without Remus, he has no one else in the whole fucking country. He hasn’t cared about that before; all his life, the most important people for him have been counted with the fingers of one hand, but now the aloneness makes him choke and he wants away from the house and from Wales and from the fucking United Kingdom.

But they have decided to stay there, because they are  _safe_ there, but Sirius thinks that maybe it’s not exactly like that and maybe Remus is not actually safe anywhere. And fuck, if Sirius hasn’t gone from one prison to another.

He can’t breathe there.

He puts on shoes and goes out. He tries to breathe again, but it feels hard and his chest feels too small all of the sudden, but he can smell summer and salt and he just turns and starts walking towards the sea. He doesn’t know how far away the sea is, but he needs something else than the damp house and the tall grass and the apple tree, and because he can’t go anywhere else, he goes where he can.

The sea is grey and it goes as far as he can see. The seaside is black, rounded rock and finally,  _finally,_ the scenery is something else than flat. It smells more like salt and fish and rain, he can hear birds and the wind makes it impossible to think. The sea is fucking huge and a bit scary, but it’s an evidence of something else than the creaking house and silence.

He goes back after hours and hours, and when he comes back to the house, Remus is already there, standing on the porch and looking worried. It makes Sirius angry; if Remus really was worried, he would talk to him.

Sometimes Sirius thinks he doesn’t know who Remus is. Maybe he has always had a mental image of Remus that doesn’t go with reality.  That may be the Remus who breaths and lives, is not the Remus Sirius thinks he knows. Maybe that Remus is not real at all. And Sirius isn’t sure if it’s because of all the time or his memory or something else entirely, but he really has no fucking idea who Remus is.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s the last day of December when the seventies end and the eighties starts. They haven’t seen Peter for so long. Peter has come back from Africa and then gone again, and he hasn’t come back yet. Sirius has been spending too much time with James and Lily. Lily is pregnant, she’s having a fucking baby and it’s ridiculous and absolutely stupid of them. James has gone insane with Lily, James would have never done anything as stupid before. Sirius hates the pair of them, or at least he would like to.

They are sitting at James and Lily’s, he and Remus, James and Lily, JamesandLily and Remus looks like he doesn’t want to be there either. Something has gone between all of them and Sirius isn’t sure what. And he doesn’t know who to blame. He wants to blame Lily. Lily is their Yoko Ono, even though James is not John Lennon, but Lily has come between them and messed everything up. At least she has messed James up. Sirius has lost James to a  _girl_ and even though it shouldn’t feel that bad, it does.

Sirius is smoking indoors and James tries to say that maybe it’s not so clever now that there is the baby on the way and everything, but James should know by now that Sirius will do what he wants and if something is forbidden, he’ll do it twice as much. Fuck. It’s like James has never done anything stupid before. Like married Lily when Sirius was in Cuba, and he hasn’t even told it to Sirius but Sirius has heard it from Remus. Sirius hates James a bit, but doesn’t really hate him at all. But it has been two weeks since Orion has called him and told him Regulus is fucking dead and Sirius doesn’t know what to do and no one has told him  _how_ Regulus has died.

There is darkness inside him.

They don’t stay there for long, it’s not even ten when Remus makes up a reason for them to go, and it sounds like an excuse, but no one says anything about it and they leave. Their train leaves in a half an hour, they have time to walk to the station. It’s snowing and Sirius is cold and pissed and short of cigarettes. Remus doesn’t say anything and Sirius says nothing, but  stops by a shop to buy more cigarettes and in a whim, a bottle of wine.

“You’re not allowed to get to the train with that,” Remus says. Sirius grins, or tries to.

“That’s why we have to drink it now.”

The wine makes him feel a bit warmer,  a bit tired  and a bit number, but in a way that when they finally get into the train, Sirius isn’t feeling so bad any longer. Their carriage is quiet, there are only a couple of other passengers with them and Sirius lets Remus sit next to the window because tunnels make Sirius anxious and he likes to sit as far away from them.

It took an hour to get to Cardiff and Sirius falls asleep twice and when he wakes up the second time he can see Remus watching him and it makes him feel strange.

They arrive in Cardiff and walk a few blocks to Remus’s apartment. Remus opens the door although Sirius has a key there too. Taking off their outwear, Sirius glances at the clock; it’s half-past eleven. A half an hour remains of the seventies and Sirius wonders if there is any alcohol in there.  Sobering up from a wine drunk is the worst kind, it feels heavy and agonising and Sirius would prefer to get drunk again. When he asks, Remus cocks his eyebrows at him, because when has there been a time Remus hasn’t had any booze in.

T hey listen to cassettes even though Remus says they sound wrong, but they don’t have a record player anymore, because it has broken the day Orion has called. Remus isn’t angry about it, but Remus doesn’t like cassettes and Sirius thinks it’s unnecessary whining because the cassette player has higher volume settings, and although it’s night and Remus’s downstairs neighbours complain about all the noises, it’s Remus who puts the volume up. Sirius's head has no space for anything else than Buzzcocks , and that’s good.

The middle of the night is forgotten, the year changes to another as they kiss on the sofa, and maybe the new decade starts with Remus’s hands under Sirius’s shirt, or maybe the new decade starts with Sirius thinking that he might actually love Remus back, or maybe the new decade starts when Sirius thinks about Regulus and Orion and the next bank, or maybe it stats when Sirius’s mind is empty from thought, and there has only been Remus and lust an d the liquor tasting wet kisses.

  
  


*

  
  


They sit in silence at the table, and Sirius just wants to ask if he has guessed right, but instead, he says nothing. It almost feels like saying it out loud would make it truer somehow, and Remus not saying anything doesn’t make it any easier.

Sirius tries to think what he would like to hear if it was him, not Remus, but he can’t think of anything. But that is not very surprising to him, he has never been very good at saying things he has meant, but he has started to think that neither has Remus. Sirius can’t remember if Remus has been before.

Sirius can remember the register plate of James’s father’s van, and he can remember what his father has said after killing Alphard, but he can’t remember whether Remus has been good at talking before.

Silence is stuck in the walls like dampness,  and  it isn’t letting them go, and Sirius just doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he has lost something in prison. Maybe they have lost something between them. Remus takes a breathe and Sirius is sure Remus will open his mouth and  _talk_ but it seems like Remus is only holding his breath. Sirius wants to bang his fist on the table,  _Fucking talk to me_ , but he doesn’t do that. He must have lost something in prison.

“Fuck,” he says accidentally out loud, and stands up. Remus doesn’t look at him, of course, he doesn’t, and Sirius puts on shoes and goes outside. He lights a cigarette and closes his eyes thinking about what could possibly make it so fucking hard. At some point Remus has become silent and something he can’t get through, or maybe he has always been like that but Sirius just can’t _remember_. It feels like he can’t trust himself anymore if his memory keeps failing him. He doesn’t want that they won’t talk about anything, because that would mean it doesn’t matter where Sirius is, he could just go, he could just go live in the London house by himself. The London house is probably empty, no one is living there, everyone has died or in prison. But Sirius could go there and live in the fucking black house with too many rooms and too many stairs and too high windows and too high fence. It probably smells like death and gunpowder and blood, and the windows are probably so filthy even the sunlight can’t come in. And probably there are rats and mice living there and beetles underneath the wallpaper, and he probably couldn’t sleep there, he would only listen to the bugs and rodents running in the walls and he would probably go insane there. He would probably look at all the stairs and he would remember that one time when he has been sixteen and fallen down all of them after fighting with Regulus. They have always fought about something stupid and when they have been supposed to fight about something real, Regulus died.

Sirius breathes in and out, over and over again, he tries to calm himself, and maybe if he tried really hard, Remus would talk to him. He finishes the smoke and kicks the cigarette butt on the ground and gets back inside. He takes off his shoes and goes into the kitchen, but Remus is not there anymore. Instead, there is an official-looking document on the table. Sirius goes to see, he’s sure Remus has left it there for him to see. He can guess what it says, but he reads it anyway.

_26_ _th_ _of September, 1986_   
\- - -  
_Name: Remus John Lupin  
Date and place of birth: 10_ _th_ _of March, 1960, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, The United Kingdom  
\- - -  
_ _Sample 754_  
POSITIVE

S irius puts the paper back on the table and turns it so the white side is up. He  _has_ guessed right, and still, he doesn’t know what he should say, what he even could say. Thirteen years seems a lot longer; it hasn’t felt that long for him, because his days have been all the same, routines and timetables, days, weeks, months and years melting together without any details to struck out. Bur Remus has  _lived_ the whole time, Remus has lived and experienced things and Sirius knows nothing about them.

Prison has changed Sirius, but time has changed Remus more.

Sirius walks to Remus’s bedroom door, it’s closed, and he has to gather courage before he knocks. Never before has he knocked on Remus’s doors, he has been able to come and go as he has pleased. It’s another reminder that time has gone by and he hasn’t realised it.

Remus opens the door for him and stands there in front of Sirius and Sirius says the first thing that comes to his mind.

“I’m sorry.”

Remus laughs, for real, he laughs. “It’s not your fault.”

_ No, it isn’t _ , Sirius wants to say, but doesn’t. “Still.”

Remus shrugs. Sirius can see how much Remus would prefer not to talk about it. Sirius wants to talk. He wants to ask what it feels like and what doctors and other people have said to him, is Remus  _ alright _ despite it, and is it one of the reasons why Remus thinks it’s a good idea to stay in Wales, even though one of the first things Remus has ever said to him was that he was never going to go back there, and still he has always come back and almost every time Sirius has come too.

“They gave me, or maybe everyone, five years. It has been eight, so there’s no reason for you to be sorry,” Remus says. “I lucked out. If you count hard luck.”

Despite himself, Sirius laughs. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Remus says. “Let’s not talk about this again.”

“But—”

“Sirius,” Remus says and his tone of voice is somewhere between plead and order, and Sirius _remembers_ it. “I don’t want to talk about it. It is what it is, and there is nothing you could do about it.”

Sirius wants to say that yes there could be, and why they can’t talk about it or anything. He wants to ask how scared Remus is, or has been, because everyone has been scared and still is, and even if Sirius doesn’t know everything, he knows that much.

It feels unfair their lives have gone like that. Sirius and Remus were supposed to be something so much more, people were supposed to talk about them in the news and write about them in the papers, but not in the way they have done. Everyone was supposed to know their names, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, they were supposed to be something unbelievable, they were supposed to own the fucking world and they were supposed to be something that Orion would have scared. It was not supposed to go like this, Sirius was not supposed to get arrested, and James was not supposed to die and Peter was not supposed to be a fucking snitch. They were supposed to own the fucking world.

Instead of the world, they have Remus’s father’s house in Wales, and they are stuck there, because everywhere else someone would probably kill them or lock them both up. And Sirius feels like something is missing, but he isn’t sure what.


	5. Chapter 5

_and I've been thinking lots about your mouth  
a conversation superseded by the way he talks  
I d be an anchor but I'm scared you'd drown  
it's safer on the ground _   
(The 1975 – Talk!)

September  
1994

Times moves differently in Wales. When he has been twenty and moved back for the first time, he has lived in Cardiff, almost in the centre of the city, it has taken five minutes to walk to the train station. He remembers his apartment well, it has had high windows, one wall has been almost completely glass and light has come in everywhere and he has been able to see rooftops. He has felt so fucking free there, but time has felt strange. When he has lived there for a week, it has felt like three, and when Sirius, a postcard in his hand, has come back from Cuba after three months, those three months have felt like years, and the moment on the door has felt like infinity. And when Sirius has lived with him for a week, it has felt like an hour. Something in Wales bends the time weirdly, and maybe that it why Remus’s memories are in the wrong order.

He can’t remember which came first: that Sirius moved in with him in Cardiff, or that he started to feel like he can’t be without Sirius. But he remembers one time when Remus has been sixteen and Sirius has just turned seventeen and they have been laying on the floor of some of the abandoned houses they have claimed as theirs, and Sirius has had greases on his face from the sheets, and Remus has been looking at Sirius and Sirius hasn’t looked back at him. Sirius’s eyes have been staring at the ceiling or somewhere, maybe he has been daydreaming with his eyes open and under his other eye, on the cheek, there has been a yellowing bruise from the van door Sirius has run into. Remus can’t remember what they have taken, but he can remember the bruise. And how Sirius’s pulse has been visible on his throat and Remus has wanted to press his fingers against it to feel how life moves inside Sirius. He hasn’t had the courage to do it, but he has moved a bit closer to Sirius and Sirius has looked at him with narrowed eyes and then dropped his eyes to Remus’s mouth and Remus has thought that he might love Sirius a little. He hasn’t known what it should feel like, but he has thought it might feel like that. But he hasn’t said anything just then, but Sirius has come even closer and he has put his hand behind Remus’s neck and his thumb has drawn circles on the base of his skull, and then Sirius has kissed him and the air has left Remus’s lungs and he has thought it must feel like that.

The first time he has said it to Sirius he has been drunk and angry, because everything has gone wrong. Sirius has had blood on his face and a gun in his shaking hand, he hasn’t put it down even for a second after he has pulled the trigger. Remus has found it scary and he has wanted to force the revolver out of Sirius’s hand because Sirius has killed someone and Remus has never been so afraid. They have been seventeen and Sirius has _killed someone_. Rodolphus Lestrange has had a hole through his chest and there has been so much blood on the floor, Remus has never seen so much blood in his life. He has known Sirius has been telling the truth when he has said he is going to kill those people who killed Alphard, but Remus hasn’t known Sirius is going to do it on the first change he has.

Remus has thought the gun Sirius has bought has been for the bank robbery fantasy, not for him to kill Rodolphus. And Remus hasn’t guessed he would be there to see it. They have left him there, Rodolphus has been dead already and Remus nor Sirius couldn’t have done anything to it. And Remus has brought Sirius where they have been living back then, and he has been trembling all over and found a bottle of whiskey, he has opened the bottle and offered Sirius some, though it might have been Sirius’s bottle. Remus has gotten drunk quickly, maybe because he has been seventeen or maybe because he has just seen his best friend killing a man dead. And Sirius has asked again and again _Why the fuck do you care so much,_ Sirius’s voice has been full of frustration and Sirius hasn’t put the gun down even then, and Remus has answered just as frustrated, _Because I love you, that’s why_ and Sirius has said, _Idiot_ and let the gun drop.

After that Remus has said it a few times. Most of the times it has been an accident, he has been going to say something else entirely or nothing at all, but instead, his mouth has said _love_ and not once has Sirius said it back. Not that Remus has been waiting for him to say it, not even when Sirius has moved in with him, in the apartment full of light, and sometimes, Remus has said it in the morning, completely sober, and Sirius has said anything even then.

It has been a year and two months since Andromeda has called Remus and told him Sirius has escaped from prison, and it has been four months since Sirius has come behind the door of Remus’s father’s house and Remus has opened the door. Four months is different somewhere else than Wales. Four months have seemed like a very long yet very short time. Still, Remus wakes up, puts on clothes, makes coffee or tea, eats breakfast, takes his medicine, shaves his beard, some days he walks to the village and looks at the old, damp houses and new cars, he buys milk and bread and walks back. Still, he opens books, but also finishes most of them, he opens and closes other books, does the dishes or washes clothes, makes dinner, listens to the weather reports from the radio, makes tea, looks at the clock, takes his medicine, takes a shower, brushes his teeth with water that tastes like copper and goes to sleep, but at the same time, Sirius is there. Sirius wakes up every morning before he does and makes coffee, and when Remus comes to the kitchen, Sirius is already outside on the porch or the front yard and chain smokes. Some days they talk about something insignificant, and some days they don’t talk at all. As more time goes by, Remus finds it harder and harder to say anything. He has tried, many times, but he thinks he might not know how to talk to Sirius anymore.

Thirteen years is a long time even in Wales. It’s probably normal and understandable if he can’t talk to Sirius. But it has been _months_ and the apples are getting ripe and Remus remembers he has promised not to let them rot this year. It’s a stupid thing to promise, and he avoids looking at the apple trees. Four months have gone by, and maybe Remus isn’t used to thinking time like that. Something in him is locked away and he knows it’s because of Sirius, but it’s not something he could just say to him.

He knows one thing, though. He has been thinking a lot, and he has come to the conclusion that he actually believes Sirius. He believes that Peter has betrayed them and that James and Lily have died because of him. He believes Sirius has had a good reason to kill Peter, and he believed he might have done the same. Maybe Remus might have shot Peter, too, but that is something he will never know. He isn’t sure if he believes Sirius because what he has said sounds believable or because believing him means he doesn’t have to hate Sirius, but Peter. It is easier to hate a dead person than Sirius, who is always there.

Remus has said that to Sirius. They have been drinking coffee and Sirius has been smoking from the kitchen window, for the porch ceiling is leaking and it has been raining so hard the apple tree has gone missing in the pouring rain.

“I believe you,” Remus has said and Sirius has looked at him and smoke has circled in the air as it has tried to get out of the window and the oppressive air has tried to push it back inside.

“What?” Sirius has asked.

“I believe you,” Remus has repeated, “that Peter told them and you killed him because of it. And that James and Lily are dead because of him.”

“Alright,” Sirius has said, and after that, they have been quiet again.

They are silent all the time, and maybe it’s because of the house and not them. Or maybe the house has changed them and now there is only silence between them, and the silence makes Remus’s ears ring.

  
  


*

  
  


It rains all the time of the second week of September. Remus looks out from the window. He should go to the village, but he would get soaked through on the way there. The roof of the porch should be fixed, the whole porch is wet as it rains over the fence and through the roof. Remus can’t fix a thing but he could try.

Remus’s thoughts get interrupted as he sees something, someone, moving outside. He looks again and narrows his eyes to see better, and for a moment he thinks he has seen the apple tree moving in the wind, but then he sees it again. Though the rain he can see _someone_ walking on the road towards the house. Remus’s heart beats in his throat and he can’t do anything.

It’s going to end there, he thinks. In the September rain and silence, his life ends in fucking Wales, in his father’s house and suddenly he feels like he hasn’t lived at all. Everything he has ever done seems pointless and worthless, and _fuck_ he has wasted his whole fucking life and now it’s going to end and he hasn’t even talked with Sirius even though he has had the chance and Sirius—

Sirius.

He’s able to move again, he turns away from the window and closes the blinds and switches the lights off, he needs to warn Sirius and get the gun and why the fuck the house doesn’t have a back door, should they try and get Sirius out of a window, because no one is coming to get _Remus_. He is nothing compared to Sirius.

“Sirius,” Remus says, goes to the living room. Sirius sits on the sofa and smokes and turns to look at him.

“Someone is coming,” Remus says. Sirius knits his brows.

“What—?” he starts, but Remus speaks over him.

“Someone is coming _here_ ,” Remus says, his voice is steady and it surprises him because his heart weights a ton and beats so hard it seems like he’s afraid.

“What the fuck,” Sirius says and turns to look at the gun next to the telephone. The bullets are still laying on the other side of the table. Sirius stands up, the cigarette drops between his fingers, Remus doesn’t have time to care about that, he goes to the table and opens the top of the revolver, loads it, locks it, it takes him a few seconds as the muscle memory does most of the work. He hands the gun to Sirius.

“What am I going to do with that?” Sirius asks. Remus looks at Sirius in the eyes even though he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to see the _fear_ in Sirius’s eyes.

“Take it and go,” Remus says.

“But—”

“Sirius,” Remus says, takes hold of Sirius’s wrist and puts the gun in Sirius’s hand. Sirius’s fingers curl around the handle. “ _Go_. Take the window or something, I don’t care just fucking go.”

Sirius looks at Remus for too long and Remus wants to push him away, but he is still holding Sirius’s wrist and he can feel the tendons moving as Sirius grips the gun harder. They don’t have time for this, they have had nothing else than time for months and now they have none and Remus is going to say _For fuck’s sake, Sirius, go_ , but he doesn’t have time; Sirius takes hold of Remus’s other arm with his free hand, takes a step and yanks Remus closer at the same time, and kisses him.

Time stops moving.

Remus remembers the last time he has kissed Sirius for the last time. It has been the spring of 1981, and Remus has been thinking about it a lot for thirteen years. He remembers the way his Cardiff apartment has been almost dark and a bit chilly, Sirius has been lying naked next to him and the whole apartment has been quiet, the only noises have been the traffic outside. There hasn’t been even a clock. Remus has turned, he has turned his whole body towards Sirius and Sirius has moved his hand over Remus’s side and waist, and Remus has been thinking that he wants to get away from it all. Away from the dirty money and adrenaline and James’s father’s van and Sirius’s stupid, dangerous, suicidal ideas. Away from the smell of the gunpowder and fear and quilt, and he has known the only way to get away it to leave it all, to leave Sirius.

It has been carving a hole inside him and the place has been so fragile, light has been shining through it to the other side. It the last thing he has wanted. All he has ever wanted has been Sirius. He has a scar on his palm for that, and as Sirius is laying there beside him, only half awake, he has wanted to stay there, and that has been why he has needed to go away. He has tangles his fingers in Sirius’s hair and his chest has felt heavy and tight and his throat has been dry and he has swallowed down sobs, and Sirius has looked at him, fully awake now, and his eyes have been dark grey and full of _something_ and Remus has been so fucking afraid he has closed his eyes. He has felt Sirius’s breath on his face, and with his eyes closed he has found Sirius’s mouth and he has kissed him, carefully at first, but then harder. He has put everything he has gotten into the kiss, and he has decided he will go.

He hasn’t wanted to feel so bad all the time, and he has thought that maybe it would be enough if he went away for a few months, he could go to Scotland, he has wanted to go back there for a while, and he has thought he could live there for some time and then get back and maybe it could be easier then. Maybe he could come back and then talk Sirius to leave it all behind, too. Or maybe he would never get back, he has thought, he would write Sirius a letter and remind him that they are not sixteen and James and Lily have a child and they need to stop it at some point. Remus has known Sirius wouldn’t understand him, and that’s why he has left the next day. He hasn’t told Sirius why or where, and Sirius hasn’t asked. And the next thing he has heard from any of them, Sirius has been arrested and James and Lily and Peter have all been dead.

Now Sirius kisses Remus hard and Remus doesn’t remember how to breathe and he thinks that what if something happened to Sirius _now,_ and how he must have realised before now how much he has missed that, and how he just wants to stay there and kiss and kiss and kiss, and maybe the time would really stop and they could stay there. His heart beats at the same rhythm as his panic, and it should not happen at all, and they could be _dead_ in a few seconds.

Remus pushes Sirius away and Sirius looks at him with his mouth slightly open and then someone knocks on the door.

A cop wouldn’t knock. A cop would kick the door down and Remus and Sirius would be in handcuffs already. Sirius’s relatives wouldn’t knock either, they would just come in and shoot them from the door, maybe even from the porch, through the front door and they would fire as long as it took for them to die.

Another knock and Remus doesn’t know what the fuck he should do.

“Open it,” Sirius says. Remus shakes his head.

“Open it,” Sirius says again, then: “Cops aren’t this polite.” Remus knows that, but he is scared it’s a trap; that whoever is behind the door is thinking _they_ would think just that, and then something bad would happen.

“ _Go_ ,” Sirius says, echoing Remus, and Remus goes. At the door, he turns back to look at Sirius and Sirius stands there with a gun in his hand. Remus looks at his hand as it turns the door handle and opens the door.

Remus doesn’t recognise the woman standing there. She has a long, black rain jacket on and the hood is hiding her face.

“Remus Lupin?”

Remus nods, almost carefully.

“It’s raining like hell here and the roof is leaking, let me in.”

Remus steps away from the door and lets her in. When he turns around, Sirius is no longer there and Remus’s heart beats weirdly wrong. She takes the hood off, revealing a bright pink buzz cut. She holds out her hand.

“You don’t probably remember me, so hi. Nymphadora Tonks, Andromeda is my mother.”

“I do remember you,” Remus says and starts connecting familiar features; she has the Black’s eyes, her mother’s chin and his father’s mouth. It has been fifteen years since he has last seen her. And now that he sees her again, he remembers what Sirius has said. _She’s a fucking cop, or training to be one anyway._ _Dora knows nothing._

“Is Sirius here?” Nymphadora asks. Remus doesn’t answer. _She’s a fucking cop. Knows nothing._

“Why?” Remus asks, he tries to sound calmer and less scared than he is. Nymphadora tilts her head and looks at him with her eyes narrowed, it’s the same expression Andromeda has had when Remus and Sirius have stayed at Andy and Ted’s attic, and they have had breakfast with Andy, and Sirius has been kicking Remus’s ankles under the table and Remus has tried to make him stop and Sirius has grinned at him over the table, and Andromeda has looked at them with that expression, and after a moment she has asked about girlfriends, and Remus has choked on his toast as Sirius has replied with _Why would we need those?_

Then Sirius comes from Remus’s bedroom, without the gun, and looks at Remus, then at Nymphadora.

“Well, fuck,” Sirius says and has obviously realised something Remus hasn’t.

“Hullo,” Nymphadora says.

“What are y—?” Sirius starts, but stops in the middle of the word, apparently lost on what he wants to ask.

Nymphadora sighs and takes off the rain jacket, water drips on the floor. “Mum told me everything.”

“Everything?” Sirius asks with clear suspicion on his tone. “What is _everything_?”

“Listen,” Nymphadora says. “I’ve walked for a hell of a long time in the pouring rain, so what if one of you made some tea for the starters?”

Remus moves first. He goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. His hands are shaking, he can’t keep a hold on things, and he’s not exactly sure why. Maybe because he has frightened so heavily his heart is still hammering. Maybe because Sirius has kissed him, or maybe not because of _that_ but because no one has kissed him in fourteen years. Or maybe because his father’s house is filling with people he has never thought would be there. Remus can’t think of any reasons why Nymphadora Tonks is there just now, and why Andromeda has told her anything, above all _everything,_ if she hasn’t done that before.

Remus can hear Sirius and Nymphadora talking, but he can’t hear or understand the words, his head is swimming and he has to sit down. Before, earlier, he has been operating best under pressure, but nowadays he crumbles over everything.

Sirius and Nymphadora come to the kitchen, and Sirius glances with a look that tells him Sirius knows, and Remus wants to stand up, to show he can do this, but he can’t. Perhaps, if he waited for a moment until his hands stop shaking and someone tells him what the fuck is going on.

Nymphadora sits down opposite of Remus like it wasn’t at all strange. Sirius stays standing, Remus thinks Sirius prefers it that way, or it might be that Sirius is making sure he can leave as fast as possible; Sirius has always been clever like that.

“You’ve been left alone here, right?” Nymphadora says. Sirius nods. Remus wants to say that they are not alone now, aren’t they, and if Nymphadora Tonks has known how to get there, what prevents all the cops in Britain following her.

“Good,” Nymphadora says and Remus kicks the table by accident. Nymphadora grins. “Alright, I guess I owe you an explanation. But then _you_ are talking.”

“Fine,” Sirius says. “Talk.”

Nymphadora waits for a moment and looks pointedly at the kettle. Sirius turns to look for cups and teabags.

“Right,” Nymphadora says. “Do Anthony Dolohov and Rabastan Lestrange ring any bells?”

Remus nods and Sirius says: “Unfortunately.”

“Dolohov and Lestrange came to look for you,” Nymphadora says, looking at Sirius. “I think they didn’t think I’d be there, because they were really after Mum. She tried to tell them she knows nothing of your whereabouts, but apparently, Lucius Malfoy had told them you had been there. They talked about Remus and Regulus, too, but when they started pointing with guns, Mum ordered me to go away. I don’t know what Mum or Dad told them, but when I came back, they were gone and no one had been shot. But after that Mum told me a lot of things she and Dad had never told me before—”

“Wait,” Sirius says, and Nymphadora turns to look at him. “How long ago was this?”

“A month or so, it was the last week of my summer holidays.”

Sirius says nothing and Remus can guess Sirius is thinking the same thing he is. If Rabastan Lestrange and Anthony Dolohov have gone to Andromeda and Ted a month ago, why the hell Sirius and Remus were still alive? Andromeda has really had convinced them.

“Continue,” Remus says. Sirius puts two cups on the table, one is on the kitchen counter, and pours boiling water on each cup. Nymphadora takes her time choosing a teabag.

“Mum and Dad have never told me anything before. I remember some things, but I think I’ve been too small to really know what has been going on. Mum said we used to come to your place fairly often,” she says, dipping her teabag into the cup. “You can probably imagine how nice it was to hear my Mum has been dealing drugs and that most of my relatives are either money laundering or neo-Nazis. How the fuck they’ve kept it from me?”

Sirius shrugs. “Andy is pretty good at hiding stuff.”

“Apparently,” Nymphadora says. “I knew about Bellatrix and I knew her husband was murdered for revenge, but I didn’t know it was you who killed him.” She looks at Sirius, and Sirius says nothing. Remus doesn’t turn to look if Sirius’s face has stirred.

“I always thought Bellatrix was a bit weird, and every family had one of those, but I guess our family is the other way around. That if you’re not into any funny business, then you’re the weird one.”

Sirius hums, maybe agreeing.

“I was supposed to finish training this year,” Nymphadora says, as an afterthought, “I’m not so sure now.”

“Why not?” Sirius asks.

“Because I know a fuck lot too much, do I?” Nymphadora says. “I should tell them about it. But I won’t. I won’t get my parents arrested. Or any other relatives,” she adds.

Remus hasn’t even put his teabag into the cup. He isn’t sure if he believes Nymphadora or not. It’s true she is there now, and she hasn’t shown any signs she would be telling about them to someone, but how the fuck is Remus supposed to trust anyone after Peter? He has thought he had known Peter. He can’t say the same about Nymphadora; she has been a kid the last time he has seen her, and that kid is not the same person than the one who’s having tea in his father’s house.

“What are you doing here?” Sirius asks.

Nymphadora shrugs. “Dunno, really. I guess I had to see it with my own eyes. Get some reassurance Mum and Dad weren’t lying.”

“I don’t think people usually lie about things like that,” Sirius says.

“Yeah, well. I don’t know. I think I could help, though,” she says, looking first at Sirius, then at Remus.

“Why?” Remus asks.

“Why not?” she asks back. “It’s about the time I take my place in the family.”

Remus looks at Sirius, and Sirius looks back at him.

“What kind of help are we talking about?” Sirius asks, and Nymphadora scoffs.

“Well, I happen to know the man who is leading the investigations about your break-out.”

“And?” Sirius asks, his face is stony.

“If Mum got me convinced it’s not the best idea to tell about you, I could probably convince Kingsley.”

Sirius puts his cup back on the counter and crosses his arms on his chest. “How?”

Nymphadora looks straight at Sirius, she has a challenge in her look. “I could persuade him to make you a convenient informant.”

“Fuck no,” Sirius spats at once.

“It’s the only way,” Nymphadora says.

“No,” Sirius says. “I’m not going to become a fucking _rat_.”

Nymphadora leans back on her chair. “Then I can do nothing for you.”

“Nymphadora—” Remus starts, but Nymphadora groans.

“Tonks, please. Mum’s fucking mental to think _Nymphadora_ is a suitable name for anyone.”

“Fine, Tonks,” Remus says, and glances at Sirius who looks back with a warning in his grey eyes. “We, or Sirius, might need some time.”

“ _No_ ,” Sirius says and he is starting to sound really frustrated. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Sirius,” Remus says, looks at Sirius for so long Sirius finally throws his hands up.

“Fine. Fucking _fine_. I’ll think about it,” Sirius says. Tonks smiles at him and drinks her tea. Remus can feel his heartbeat calming down.

Maybe they’ll get through it. Maybe they’ll get through it after all.


End file.
